


Maybe This Time

by msermesth



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: 616 Steve / 616 Tony is endgame, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers Vol. 5 (2013), Awkward Sexual Situations, Blow Jobs, Bottom Tony Stark, Emotionally Crippled Idiots In Love, Extremis, Fix-It, Hand Jobs, Hickmanvengers Fix-It, Incursion Sex, M/M, Multiverse Shenanigans, Near Death Experiences, Nomad Steve Rogers, Superior Iron Man, Superior Iron Man Fix-It, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Vintage Avengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 10:30:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14747147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msermesth/pseuds/msermesth
Summary: Tony’s better now. You can even say he’ssuperior. But all the money, alcohol, and sex can’t stop the incursions, and when his world is destroyed, he ends up on an earth ten years younger than his own.One where Steve goes by the name of Nomad.If there’s one thing Steve’s good at, it’s reminding him of what really matters, and maybe that makes Nomad the person Tony needs if he's going to save the universe.





	1. Earth 616 (Betrayal + 4 Months)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Royswordsman (RoySwordsman)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoySwordsman/gifts).



> This fic is set during Hickman’s Avengers run, sometime between the Time Gem arc and Time Runs out (#34 and #35), as well as after the events of Superior Iron Man. Tony’s inverted, which means he’s become a selfish asshole, Steve’s very angry at him because of the mindwipe, and the incursions are still actively happening.
> 
> Be on the lookout for a lot of TEMPORARY character death, at least four near death experiences, alcoholism/alcohol use that's canonically-appropriate to Superior Iron Man 
> 
> This fic is probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever written, and it wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for two people. [Sheron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron) was an all-around wonderful and supportive beta who made my writing legible and coherent. And I couldn’t possibly forget [ColonelRogers](http://colonelrogers.tumblr.com/), who made some beautiful art that stuck in my brain and then proceed to be nothing less than amazing to work with. Honestly, none of this would be here without them and their kind words and willingness to suffer my brainstorming.
> 
>  

_Beautiful people, more power than a god, and sunshine_ , he muses. _I might as well be king of the world._

But it’s even better than that.

He’s Tony Stark.

Tony sinks further into the hot tub, leaving only his face above water, and focuses on the way the jets hit every knot in his muscles and puff up the fabric of his favorite swim-shorts. The effect is flawless and he should know—like everything else in his mansion on top of Alcatraz Island—it’s been engineered and built by him.

Up here, everything is perfect. Now that he's no longer apart of the Avengers, he can get was he deserves.

“Oh my god,” whispers a bikini-clad woman sitting right next to him. “It’s Susan Storm.”

Tony tenses at the name. Then he opens one eye and waits for Sue to stand next to the hot tub before lifting himself up into a sitting position without getting out of the water. “What do I owe the pleasure?”

“Can we talk?” she asks and completely sidesteps any niceties.

She’s almost unrecognizable in her black SHIELD uniform, and the reminder of her current loyalties makes Tony frown. He doesn’t care if she sees his annoyance. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk.” She’s calm and controlled, but the note of ice underneath that makes Tony feel better, because it’s obvious she wants to be here as much as he wants her here.

He considers if there is any way he can convince her to join him in the hot water, but one look at her face makes it clear he won’t get his way and instead he stands up and takes the time to feel the San Francisco breeze against his warm and wet skin. He tries another tactic. “Want a drink?”

Sue doesn’t answer, she just waits for Tony to step out of the tub, leaving his current companion behind, and patiently follows him into the large space that fronts the pool. Tony walks right up the bar and begins to mix two martinis. Of all the things in his new home, this bar may be his favorite. He takes his time pouring the gin, stirring it carefully with vermouth, straining it into the glass, and spearing three olives to put on top. Sometimes he loves the ritual as much as the actual alcohol. It’s one of the things he missed the most in all the years he was sober, and he extends each action as long as he can to wring out every last drop of happiness he denied himself before.

“What does Steve want?” he asks and offers Sue one of the martinis. She pretends he doesn’t and Tony drinks it instead. It goes down faster than it took Tony to make it.

He can feel her judgment on his skin and he tries not to squirm. It’s one of her special powers. “Why do you think I’m here on Steve’s behalf?”

“Because that’s how it is, now. Steve says ‘jump’ and the world asks, ‘off what bridge?’” He takes another drink of the second martini and lets this sip sit on his tongue.

“At least Steve is trying to stop the Cabal,” she retorts with a conviction Tony finds hilarious.

He laughs. “Is he?” Tony tilts his and draws out the question.

Sue looks around again and makes a point to stare at a bikini top that’s been thrown over one of the couches. “It’s more than you’re doing.”

Tony scoffs. It isn’t as if Tony isn’t doing everything he can to figure out the incursions. He has supercomputer after supercomputer running simulations constantly and feeding him any insights as soon as he can get them, he’s been designing and building and testing every sort of device to study what’s causing the incursions, and he’s hacking any network he thinks Namor and his gang would use for information on their whereabouts. It’s just hasn’t been enough. So, she’s right. Tony hates that.

Tony decides to not respond and Sue gives an exasperated sigh that Tony is sure she practiced growing up with Johnny and has perfected with Reed and their children. “This isn’t SHIELD business. It’s personal.”

“Oh,” he exclaims and purposefully misunderstands her by putting on the most seductive smile he has. “That’s the best kind of business.”

“You’re impossible to talk to, you know that?” She huffs, looks around at everything strewn around the room, and sets her shoulders. “I have something I think you should take a look at.” He looks down to see her holding a small Fantastic Four branded flash-drive.

It confirms a suspicion Tony’s had for a little while now. “Is this coming from you, or from Reed?”

“Both.”

“Does Steve know?”

Sue shakes her head and pushes the drive into Tony’s hand. “We’ve been trying to figure something—anything—out, and right now this may be out best option.”

Tony picks it up and studies it, lets Extremis run a quick virus scan, and slips it into his pocket. “What’s Steve going to say when he finds out you came here?” he asks because all the pieces are falling into place, except the one shaped like Tony’s least-favorite senior citizen.

“Honestly? I can handle if Steve is angry at me when it’s the right thing to do. I’m not sure you can, however.” Sue turns to walk away, but Tony grabs her by the wrist.

They aren’t done. He still needs answers. “What else is going on? What are the rest of the Illuminati planning? What’s SHIELD’s next move?”

Sue shakes herself out of grip. “I don’t owe you any of that information, given you have no desire to work with the Avengers or SHIELD.” She pauses, considers something, and adds, “Though the rest of SHIELD would really prefer if you stopped releasing sex tapes. I swear Steve almost had a heart attack after the last one. I called medical.”

“Why do you think that was me?”

“Because you have to go through a Stark Industries paywall to watch them,” she responds, clearly taking no bullshit.

Tony decides to try a different tactic. “And how about a dip in the pool? You work so hard, Sue, why not take some time to unwind?”

She pauses, considers. “You know what? That does sound nice.”

Tony continues. “Have a drink, get a massage, spend some time in the sun…”

“Hmmmm…” She murmurs agreement and walks back to Tony. There is something off in her walk, however. “And maybe, just a little bit later, you and I could find a quiet corner to—”

Tony’s a little surprised but her insinuation, but not entirely. He never understood why people wanted him, but now he’s more confused to find people who don’t. “Sue, this is a side of you I haven’t seen before. Normally I draw the line at women with kids, but for you I—”

She slaps him.

“What the hell was that for?!” Tony shouts and gingerly touches his burning cheek.

“The universe is imploding, asshole!”

There is anger beginning to radiate over his entire body. It tingles up his spine and Tony knows by the way Sue’s expression changes that his eyes are glowing red. It’s just a side effect of the new version of Extremis he decided not to fix. Sue looks at him like he’s barely human. Tony supposes he is. “The only reason why you’ve not been forcibly excused from the premises is because you’re a friend, Sue.”

She turns around and walks away. Without turning around, she says loud enough that the entire party can hear her, “Oh, Tony. You don’t have friends, anymore.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Later that night, Tony lies in bed and attempts to will himself to sleep. He isn’t tired—he is never tired these days—but the woman lying next to him looks so peaceful, he’s almost jealous.

She has a name, but he prefers not to remember it for the moment. Earlier, she laughed like Rumiko, she danced like Rumiko, she smiled like Rumiko. She’s beautiful asleep, had been beautiful awake, and will be beautiful in the morning when he ignores her, and she leaves the compound still feeling like it had been the best night of her life. Tony looks at her—really looks—and tries to focus on the way she makes him feel.

He feels nothing.

He smiles.

See, Tony used to have this shortcoming. He cared. He cared, and he destroyed because he had been unable to understand that those were the same thing

Tony learned the truth the hard way, and now all he cares about is the future. Ever since he chose to remain inverted, his only imperative is to figure out what he’s going to build or who he’s going to fuck or how he’s going to feel if he takes another shot or does another line. And he’s never been happier or more productive.

Now is the time in the middle of the night where he normally gets up as quietly as he can and makes his way to the workshop, so he shimmies out of bed to make sure not-Rumiko doesn’t wake up and finds where she threw his shorts earlier. He slips them on and fishes out Sue's flash drive from one of the pockets before picking up a half-empty bottle of vodka and walking naked downstairs with it to his favorite place in the new mansion. The workshop’s dark, unlike the rest of his house, but it reminds him of another home, and he’s surprisingly nostalgic for a futurist.

There are incomplete armor parts and deconstructed concept phones strewn everywhere and Tony gives them a glance to decide if any of them are more important than whatever Reed and Sue have tasked him with. He debates tinkering with the electromagnet he’s designed, built to react with the earth’s magnetic field, like the universe’s strongest compass. It’s not the only thing he’s working on to stop incursions, but it’s the most advanced. There’s not much he can do to test it any more than he already has, however, and he decides to focus on what’s on the flash drive.

Tony expects complex equations or a hologram for some invention, but it’s not that at all. All he’s looking at is a pencil drawing of the top of a pool table on a half-sheet of paper. Two sets of writing are scribbled in, one in pencil and the other in pen, both barely legible, and also little markings around the pool balls that Tony quickly conceptualizes as galaxies. One word in pencil that points to the flat part of the table reads ‘time’; a few more are scribbled underneath that say, ‘that makes sense’. Both are barely legible.

The writing in pen belongs to Reed—Tony would know—but the drawing and the other notes clearly belong to a child. “Val…” Tony says aloud, but the realization doesn’t help him decipher what he’s looking at. He’s surprised that the two of them are even interacting, and he’s unsure why Sue felt it was important to share her daughter’s doodle with him.

Tony shakes his head and closes the image. Reed must be losing it, he thinks, and takes a long swig of vodka straight from the bottle. There is nothing here for him, nothing that can help Tony stop the inevitable destruction of the multiverse. They’re all flailing around, pretending they aren’t benefiting from the rampant violence every member of the Cabal is waging on worlds that are not their own, all the while getting nowhere.

In the beginning, Tony said they needed more time and he feels the weight of every second gone on his shoulders.

Everyone—the Illuminati, the Avengers, Pepper, _Steve_ —thinks that he’s given up and just wants to fuck his way to the end of the world. But that’s not it at all. He looks again at the little flash drive and thinks of the plan he is currently finalizing and realizes that maybe he is the only one who can figure the incursions out. The Illuminati couldn’t; SHIELD won’t. As always, it’s Tony’s responsibility.

He looks around again for something to tinker with and keep his hands busy while his mind tries to wrap itself around the problem, and his eyes fall on a tube of Extremis not far from his computer. Tony picks it up and examines it; he made it especially for Steve. It’s designed to return him back to the age he was before he was drained of the serum and even possibly help him return to his super-soldier state. All Steve has to do is _ask_ , but in the two months Tony has been in San Francisco, Steve can’t seem to even deign to make the cross-country trip for the few things Tony has left to offer him. Tony can give him back his strength and his youth. If Steve would only admit he needed it, he could have back his health and all the years he’ll now never get to live.

The room glows red from Tony’s eyes and his breathing gets heavy as his anger rises to the surface. Tony pushes everything off his desk with one bare forearm, even the vial containing Steve’s special strain of Extremis, and the glass breaks and he watches as his hundreds of hours of work evaporates into the air. “God fucking DAMMIT!” he screams and tries to regain control, letting Extremis help him slow his breathing. “Dammit,” he repeats, but only this time it’s just a barely a whisper.

“Boss?” FRIDAY asks because there was a time he was too stupid to think about giving her boundaries.

“Synthesize another version of 3444-5464. The notes are in the system.”

“Okay, I expect it’ll be ready by tomorrow.” Her voice is clear, but Tony almost thinks he hears fear somewhere in there. He needs to reprogram her soon.

“That is unacceptable. I expect it in a couple of hours.” Tony snaps.

“Whatever you say, boss.”

Tony takes a deep breath, leans back in his chair, and takes another swig from the bottle in his hand. He lets Reed and Val’s notes simmer in his mind and focuses on the way the alcohol makes everything tight within him loosen up. He does some of his best problem-solving this way, and when he thinks back to all those years he abstained, he shudders.

Tony Stark is better than sobriety.

Images of pool balls bouncing off each other dance in his mind and there is something there that he can’t grab hold of. Maybe all he needs is to jump start his mind, and he opens a drawer right next to him and—

—the incursion light in his palm goes off, and without putting on anymore clothes, he calls for the symbiote armor to come to him. A quick check shows that this incursion is happening right off the coast of Point Reyes and Tony smiles because he can take the scenic route. There is no point waiting for the armor—it knows exactly where it needs to be—and he walks to the balcony overlooking the Bay. For a second, he stands right on the edge and feels the familiar rush when he looks down at the long fall.

And then, Tony pushes himself forward, just enough, so that he’s falling to the water. He can feel the symbiote right behind him, but it waits to the last possible moment to cover his skin and stop the fall. He’s close enough that he can dip his hand down and feel the water as he flies. He twists one hundred and eighty degrees and enjoys the way his velocity kicks up the water around him before taking a sharp turn up just to fly cross the Golden Gate Bridge and give the people of San Francisco the show they deserve.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The red earth looms in the sky as Tony approaches the incursion point, and it's so bright it outshines the moon and reflects red off of the rough waves below. In another lifetime and under different circumstances, Tony would have been awed by the sight, but here and now, it makes his stomach flip. Too many of his bad memories have happened under a glowing red earth.

Memories Tony has no intention of repeating.

He looks around and doesn’t see a single other person. Tony only has one chance to try this Hail Mary plan before anyone else shows up and tries to stop him, so he quickly pulls out the small, yet powerful, electromagnet from the suit. If everything goes according to his calculations and modeling, it might repel the two earths and ideally do so in such a way that doesn’t crush everything and everyone. The little glowing disk floats in the air in front of him, sensitive enough to be caught in earth’s magnetic field and for just a second, it’s perfectly still, but then it twitches so quickly Tony only picks it up with his Extremis-enhanced senses.

It’s responding to the approaching earth, so there isn’t much time. Tony’s HUD is telling him that there will be people approaching from the east in five minutes and given that this has never happened before, he’s has no reason to believe they won’t be hostile to him. He takes a deep breath and adds this unexpected variable into his calculations, leading him to conclude he doesn’t have another option, all the while hoping he’s not about to destroy both earths in the process.

He’s stopped from detonating it when the HUD picks up new heat signatures, but this time from above him. With dread pooling in his gut, Tony looks up and sees three figures quickly approaching from the other earth. Maybe they have different technology, different abilities. _They can help_ , Tony says to himself, but he doesn’t believe it.

“Iron Man?” A familiar figure says above him and Tony sees Reed, of all people, flying with some sort of jet pack contraption and floating besides a version of Hyperion wearing red and… Ultron.

“Hey Reed, how ya’ doing?” Tony responds and tries to keep his tone light.

“Check him,” this new Reed commands without a beat and Ultron flies up and scans him with a beam of light Tony can feel in his internal organs.

“Tony Stark, Universe 616,” Ultron announces.

Hyperion hears the news and comes closer. “Are there more of you?”

Tony’s not sure if he means Illuminati or Avengers, but he doesn’t belong to either of their clubs anymore, so it’s not really a lie when he says “No, but there are apparently more of you.”

This Reed stares at him and Tony can see the differences between this man and the one he knows so well. He’s younger, brasher, and crueler. Tony can see it in his eyes. “He’s lying.”

Tony feints just as Hyperion comes rushing at him and then manages to dodge Ultron’s concussion blasts by millimeters. If Ultron didn’t tip him off, now is about the time he would realize that they aren’t on his side.

“Keep him alive!” this Reed shouts. Tony blasts Ultron and is surprised to find out this may be an early enough version of the robot that he can actually hurt it. Hyperion is harder, because he’s fast and comfortable in the air, but so is Tony. That gives him just enough time to evade so that he can think of a strategy.

“STAND DOWN,” someone shouts below them… and fuck. It’s Steve’s voice that’s booming in his ears and Tony thinks _go away_ but Steve’s never learned how to read his mind.

“No!” Tony screams and looks down to see Steve approaching from below. He’s wearing that ‘I’m a vulnerable old man, now’ armor and flying closer to him. “It’s not who you think it is!”

Reed takes Tony’s distraction as an opportunity to cover him in some sort of impossibly strong webbing. Tony tries pushing the symbiote to break free but the bonds are too strong.

“Thank you, Hyperion, for helping us detain him, but this is a SHIELD situation now,” Steve says, making it clear that he thinks he’s talking to his own Hyperion and not whatever Squadron Sinister version that’s actually here. Steve must not see Ultron and until he does, he isn’t going to listen to him. Earth is glowing right above him and it’s _awful_ because ten minutes ago Tony was going to save the world and Steve _won’t believe him_.

Tony ramps up his struggle against the webbing and tries to raise the armor’s heat output to melt them. This alternate and definitely evil Reed laughs like the situation is absurd and then he just nods at Hyperion who blasts Steve with a burst of atomic vision that sends him falling into the ocean. Tony watches with a strange sense of detachment, as if all of this is just happening through a television screen. Other agents from SHIELD are beginning to fly into the area but no one moves like it matters.

Reed and Hyperion fly away towards their own earth and pull Tony, struggling against his bonds, with them. When they cross the threshold, he sees that it looks just like his own earth, down to the dark blue ocean reflecting the eerie red glow of his own home in the sky.

“You don’t have to do this,” Tony begs, because he knows what happens next.

Reed takes out a detonator device and pauses just enough to say, “Yes, we do.”

The sky lights up and then it’s over. The company Tony built, the people Iron Man saved, _seven billion lives_ are obliterated.

Tony doesn’t feel a thing.


	2. Earth 440519 (Betrayal - 10 Years)

They put him in a glass cage in a dark and damp basement and Tony doesn’t care. He doesn’t care that they don’t provide him food or a bed. He doesn’t care when they try and take the armor away. (The armor cares and hardens around him.) He doesn’t even care that the cage somehow manages to make Extremis inert. He’s only concerned about one thing.

“Whose dick do I have to suck in order to get a drink?” he shouts to no one in particular. There has to be guards somewhere in the vicinity, but he hasn’t seen them since he was shoved in to this prison. “I’m not picky, either. All I need is a bottle of something. Could be bottom-shelf shit, mouthwash, even, just anything.” The need for a drink is beginning to gnaw at him and crawl around his skin. He senses the nausea he associates with withdrawal because apparently his body no longer has Extremis to account for that.

No one fulfills the request ( _you’re missing out on an excellent blow-job_ , he thinks) and Tony just waits for something to change. He can’t sleep due to the rapid beating of his heart, but he’s not quite awake either. He’s not sure why they haven’t killed him yet. If all they want is the armor, that may be their only option. He’s tracking the passage of time by how his suit is getting increasingly uncomfortable the longer he can’t remove it. He doesn’t really mind the itch, however. He’d be happy if it never came off. This armor is the best coffin he can think of.

There is a faint sound coming from where Tony assumes is the hallway that leads into this basement room and he quiets his brain to focus. He imagines the evil version of Reed coming in and gloating some more and honestly, he just wishes he wouldn’t, even if it could be a valuable source of information. At this point he’ll take silence over seeing Reed's face if it doesn’t come with liquor.

No one listens to this request, either, and the noises get louder and closer and maybe just a little more violent. There is a sharp sound of someone screaming in pain and now Tony might just be curious enough to suffer Reed’s face. A shadow comes into view and the silhouette belongs to no one Tony was expecting. There’s a cape hanging from those wide shoulders.

 _Remember when Steve wore a cape?_ Tony thinks but the memory is broken and hollow, an empty feeling without any meaning.

Capes are inefficient, anyway, and Tony sees how this one provides the slightest drag as the figure moves forward. The man’s proportions are just right, though, he notices.

And then the face gets close enough to the glass that Tony’s adjusted vision can see the shape of his face.

“Tony?”

“No,” he says and he’s not denying the question as much as the entire premise of the situation.

“It’s me. Steve.”

“No,” Tony repeats and his voice breaks. This isn’t happening. He’s not seeing what he’s seeing—the man in front of him _is_ Steve.

“Tony…” Steve whines and that breaks Tony’s daze. Another universe, another Steve, he thinks and stands up to look him in the eye. The light makes it difficult to see what exactly Steve is wearing, but it’s certainly not any Captain America gear Tony has ever seen.

“You’re here to break me out?” Tony asks.

Steve smiles, and he must be happy that Tony is responding coherently. He doesn’t answer—not with words—but he begins to bang on the glass as if testing it. Tony is about to tell him that it’s not going to work (it isn’t as if Tony didn’t try), but Steve reaches into a pouch and pulls out a short metal tube. The room lights up as the laser cutter creates a precise hole wide enough for Tony to walk through. The laser is so bright that Tony can only make out the way the gold details of the costume Steve is wearing light up, but then the light is gone and Tony can’t distinguish anything more in the following darkness. He has to use his hands to feel for the hole in the glass and step through.

There are sounds coming from the hallway and instead of waiting for evil-Reed and company to come to him, Tony blasts the ceiling over the doors. That’s good, he thinks. At least Extremis is working again.

More of the building comes down than Tony is expecting and he hears a couple of pained screams from the rubble. Steve makes a noise to the side of him. “That was our way out,” Steve observes and shakes his head. “Ok, Plan B. Can you use your sensors and see if there is an exit we can use?”

Tony does. “There’s an air shaft behind us. All we need is to blast—” Tony aims a repulsor beam right at the spot and watches in satisfaction as light fills the space. “—right there.” He gives Steve his best cocky smile and that’s when he finally realizes who exactly he’s talking to. It’s Steve, all right, except he looks like the man Tony knew ten years ago. This Steve is much, fresher, and not hardened by all those years of battles and betrayals and finding out his sidekick became a brainwashed assassin.

And now that the light is shining through the hole in the ceiling, he can tell that the man standing in front of Tony isn’t Captain America or Commander Rogers or even The Captain. No, because that would make some sense. Instead, Tony is looking at midnight blue, gold, a long cape, and Steve’s chest, laid bare to the world. In other words, Steve’s in the Nomad costume.

Tony laughs. And laughs, and laughs, until his he’s bent over gasping for air. Of all the times he had to run into Steve, he had to be wearing _that_.

“Is something wrong?” Steve asks and he’s so concerned Tony laughs some more. Somehow, Tony had forgot how just how sincere Steve used to be. It’s amazing what years can do to a man.

“Why are you wearing… that?” Tony asks when he can finally get enough air in his lungs to talk.

Steve looks down and tries to find what exactly Tony seems to be hung up on. “This? It’s my costume.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tony waves him off. “I always liked it, anyway. It’s a crime against humanity to cover up those abs.”

“Yeah… you did like it,” Steve says and looks right into Tony’s eyes. Tony suffers a few seconds of whatever epiphany Steve seems to be having, but shakes his head and brakes eye contact. That doesn’t stop Steve, however, from saying, “When we found out that the Cabal captured a you from another universe, I didn’t believe it. But it’s true, isn’t it? It’s really _you_.”

All those ‘you’s feel weighty in a way Tony is completely uncomfortable with. He doesn’t have it in him to deal with Steve’s earnestness at the moment and he probably won’t have the capacity for it again. It’s best not to indulge it. “Yeah, you know what? I’d prefer you didn’t do that thing where you try to make this moment feel significant, so let’s just _not_ right now.” Something dark flashes behind Steve’s eyes and Tony feels a nice sense of satisfaction for making Steve angry, even for a second. “Let’s just get the fuck out of here instead of talking about our feelings, okay?”

Steve squares his shoulders and it looks especially commanding with the cape. “You’re right.” He stares up at the hole in the ceiling and Tony sees the problem immediately.

“You need a lift?” Tony asks and gestures to his body.

Steve looks him over and seems confused by what he sees. “The armor is different.”

“The armor is _better_ ,” Tony explains, and he stretches out his arm on instinct, just like he used to when they flew together. Steve responds in kind and steps close to wind his arm around Tony’s shoulder. Tony tries to do the same, but— “What the fuck do I do about this cape?” Is he supposed to put his arm over or under it? And isn’t it going to create drag when they’re up in the air?

“Just like this,” Steve huffs and grabs Tony’s armored fingers to wrap them around the tight fabric against his waist so that his finger tips are resting on Steve’s bare abs.

 _Not bad_ , Tony thinks. “Where’re you going?” is what he actually says.

“Avenger’s mansion.” Steve’s arm is still resting against Tony’s. “You know it?”

Tony chuckles at the way Steve sounds like he hasn’t decided if he trusts this new Tony Stark. “Of course, I know it,” he says, and lifts off with as much ‘oomph’ as he can. It wouldn’t hurt to give Steve a taste of what the new armor can do.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The mansion looks the same as it always did from the sky. Tony still hasn’t figured out where exactly they are in time here—New York certainly looks more modern than he remembers it from this era, but it’s different enough that he can’t point to one building as an example of just how different it is. Steve is silent beside him and if he’s thrown off by the extra force of the flight, he doesn’t make it known. He always was a stubborn asshole.

 _And now he’s gone_ , Tony remembers.

That ache hits him in a way it didn’t when he was watching Steve fall to the ocean or saw the earth blew up in the sky. Tony responds to the thought by picking up even more speed as they make the final approach. He stops just in time to land on the roof, but it’s close and he’s sure the change in velocity would make even a super soldier nauseous.

Steve staggers once his feet hit the ground and Tony uses the time it takes Steve to catch his breath and get his bearings to really observe him. The Nomad costume—in all its glory—is unchanged and it’s everything Tony remembered. Steve pulls it off with the same flair he somehow always got away with when he wore a deconstructed American flag and pirate boots. He had once confided in Tony that he even designed and sewed the costume itself and Tony had internally glorified in the idea that when left to his own devices, Steve was a complete dork.

“Where’s your mask?” Tony asks once he realizes exactly what’s missing from the ensemble.

Steve pulls it out from a pouch on his belt and waves it in explanation. “Wearing it makes it harder to see in the dark. So, you know Nomad?” he asks Tony.

“He’s kinda a legend.” Tony smirks because Nomad has always held a special place in his heart.

“Really?” And there the earnestness comes back again. Tony isn’t sure how much of this pure-version of Steve he can handle.

“Oh yeah, totally. It was a real shame when he put down the cape,” Tony says with the right amount of sarcasm.

Steve looks confused, hurt, or maybe hopeful and Tony doesn’t even try to make sense of it. “Why’d he give it up?”

“He wanted to be Captain America again.”

“So, you have a Steve Rogers?” Then Steve stops in horror as he remembers something important. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I mean you _had_ , no wait… what I’m trying to say is that… It’s awful to lose people. I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose everyone.” _Oh_ , Tony thinks, _he’s talking about my non-existent home._ Tony shrugs off whatever feeling is trying to crawl to the surface. Steve watches him, clearly concerned, and Tony looks out towards Midtown and away from Steve’s confusion. Eventually curiosity must win, because Steve adds, “And your Steve Rogers _was_ Captain America, too.”

It’s windy up here on the top of the mansion and Tony thinks that as good a reason as any to wrap his arms around himself. “I didn’t _have_ anything. And Captain America isn’t Steve Rogers. That’s Sam Wilson.”

There is a short second where Steve’s surprised, even floored by this information, but then he smiles like it’s the best news he’s ever heard. “Sam? That’s perfect.”

Tony begins walking backward towards where he knows the door into the mansion is. “Yeah, whatever, honestly, can we go downstairs now? I need a drink.” He turns so he doesn’t have to see how Steve reacts to him. Now is the time he should ask about his own counterpart, but he has a feeling he’d rather deal with the unknown than whatever this Steve has to say on the subject.

This is his new way of not caring.

The mansion is almost a perfect carbon copy of the one Tony lived in for so much of his life. That’s not at all comforting, but it’s the closest thing to normalcy since he decided to try the electromagnet, so he grabs hold to familiarity. It doesn’t hurt that he knows exactly where he used to keep the booze.

One of the configurations of the old Avengers’s team—made up of Clint, Wanda, Mantis, and Vision—is standing around in the front room and Tony has the strange feeling he’s been expected. Everything about them makes him squirm in his skin _. It’s the dated costumes_ , is what he tells himself. Instead of acknowledging their company, he makes a beeline to the liquor cabinet, grabs a heavy-bottom glass, and pours scotch right to the rim. He takes a long drink—it’s exactly what he’s been craving for the day—and turns around when he’s sufficiently sure that he’ll feel the alcohol as soon as it hits his bloodstream.

They are all staring at him like he’s a Skrull and Tony gives them the biggest, least genuine smile he can. A not-so-unexpected feeling of hate fills him. “What are you looking at?” he asks them and takes another long sip.

“Tony?” Clint asks with the hopeful tone that comes with seeing a dead man. “Is it really you?”

That answers the question Tony wasn’t sure he wanted an answer to. This world had a Tony Stark, but not anymore. He shrugs. “I guess?”

Wanda’s watching him. Trying to figure him out. “We didn’t believe the intelligence about the Cabal holding you when we heard it, but Steve didn’t even blink. ‘If Tony, _any Tony_ , is alive, we’re going to save him,’ he said.”

A familiar set of heavy footprints heralds Steve’s arrival and the room finally shifts its focus from Tony to Steve. “Our intel was right… The Cabal destroyed another world and took Tony prisoner.” Everyone falls silent for a moment longer of mourning than Tony wants to give his dead. He shifts, suddenly uncomfortable with the way the armor sits on his skin and turns around to pour himself another drink. He wants to be alone and so wasted there are no more memories to bury. Mostly, he just wants to be someone else. Someone who doesn’t feel this way.

“What’s our next step, Cap?” Mantis asks.

“I… I don’t know.” It’s a rare admission of vulnerability and it changes the air of the room. “But now that we have someone with Tony’s skills to help us…” Steve looks to Tony and Tony looks at the painting on the far side of the room. He hadn’t actually said he was going to stick around. “…I think we might be able to figure something out.”

Everyone is staring at him again and Tony is definitely, completely, unsure of how to handle it. “Can we talk about this tomorrow?” he asks, and it sounds softer than he intended so he tries again. “Because right now, I want to be fucking drunk and not in a room with all of you.”

No one looks offended and it pisses Tony off. “Of course, we understand. We remind you of the people you’ve lost.”

“Ughhhhh… just don’t,” he says dismissively, and grabs an unopened bottle of gin before walking towards his room.

For a few seconds it feels like he’s going to get away with it until Steve tentatively asks, “Where’re you going?”

“If I’m staying here, I’m staying in my bedroom,” Tony explains like it’s obvious.

There is some sort of grumbling behind him and Tony catches snippets like ‘can he?’, ‘are you sure?’, and ‘I’ll handle it.’

Tony is almost up the stairs when Clint comes bounding to him and manages to wedge in front of him. “No one’s been in there for some time…” Clint says as if that was all the explanation he needs.

“So?”

“Our Tony… he’s dead—”

“—I figured that out—”

“And Steve hasn’t let anyone in here since it happened.” They’re right in front of the door, now. Tony thinks about how he could overpower Clint if he wanted to and that the suit would make it easy.

“Why?” he asks and immediately regrets it.

“Uh… How do I say this? Hm,” Clint looks around, possibly to ensure their privacy, and finishes, “They were… together. Our Steve and our Tony. And when Tony died, Steve didn’t handle it well. He closed off Tony’s room and the workshop and even when it was time for him to be Captain America again, he refused to do so. He never said why, but I know it’s because he wants to preserve whatever it is that they had.”

“Uh-huh…” Tony nods his head up and down to pretend he knows what Clint is talking about. Tony used to love with that intensity; the type where you can’t ever move on or let go. Now the entire concept feels foreign to him. “Is this your way of telling me I need to find a different room?”

“No…” Steve says from behind him. He looks smaller, still wearing the Nomad costume and standing in the mansion hallway. Tony never got to see him like this when he was in the middle of his existential crisis about being Captain America, but he remembers the ways Steve used to wear his feelings on his sleeve. It humbled Tony, back then, but now it just makes him angry. “It’s yours,” Steve announces and pulls out a key to unlock it.

How the hell is Tony supposed to respond to that?

“Thank you?” he says and he’s not entirely sure if he means it.

Steve sighs, clearly confused who this stranger is in the skin of his old lover. “Tell me if you need anything.” And then he walks away, his cape flowing behind him, and leaves Tony in a dusty room he recognizes but can’t stand. It isn’t his. Nothing in here is.

The armor slithers off his skin and reforms, standing sentinel before the door. “Thank you,” Tony tells it and lays down on the bed. There is a photo in a simple frame right on the end table. He tries to look away, but it commands his attention. Glancing at it makes him reach for the bottle he set down and he tries to take a swig without getting up. It’s a miracle that more than half ends up in his mouth. In the photo, Steve’s still in the Nomad costume, mask and all, and he’s kissing… that other Tony. It’s a man Tony can only barely remember—he had a mustache back then; he wore pink shirts back then; _he had hope_ , back then. It’s passionate, intimate, the photo clearly taken when neither person involved knew it was happening, and the affection radiates outward and makes Tony’s skin crawl. It’s so simple, so archaic in it’s depiction of love that it makes Tony feel old to remember when he wanted that.

Tony closes his eyes shut. He’s exhausted beyond explanation and he falls asleep thinking about how weird it must be to be loved.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_“Tony,” someone is saying, far away, and barely audible as if there is a wall separating him and the speaker. It’s Steve, of course, Tony knows that voice from all the years he spent wishing it didn’t send a shiver down his spine._

_But Steve hates him. Steve wouldn’t come see him, come stop him._

_“Go away,” Tony mumbles and he wonders why Steve decided to finally schlep all the way to Alcatraz Island now that Tony is too far gone to ever turn back from what he’s done. He doesn’t want to see Steve ever again so his eyes stay closed and he wills himself to sleep._

_“Tony, you need to get up,” Steve repeats and someone knocking now, it’s loud and echoes in the cavernous room and Tony’s head hurts because he drank so much last night._

_“Go the FUCK away, STEVE,” he screams back. Anything to make Steve stop. Anything to make Steve and his judgment disappear._

_“Please.” Steve’s begging and screaming now and Tony can hear the door rattling. He needs to upgrade the mansion’s doors, so he can sleep in peace—_

Wait.

_He’s supposed to be in San Francisco, not the mansion._

Tony opens his eyes and he wishes he is back in that cell.

Steve’s dead. Pepper, Rhodey, and everyone else are dead.

The door breaks off its hinges and falls to the floor just at the moment it comes together and this new Steve flies through, Nomad costume at all. He doesn’t get far—Tony’s armor is faster, and it quickly captures him in a choke-hold that leaves Steve’s feet dangling off the ground. Steve wiggles around in the air, trying to get free and Tony’s sure Steve could if he had another minute. But in the meantime, he’s pathetically gasping for air while Tony stares and tries to figure out what’s a dream and what’s really happening in front of him.

“Let him go,” Tony chokes out and Steve falls unsteadily to his feet. “Don’t do that again. Don’t hurt him,” he commands the armor and it sounds strange coming out of his mouth. Why does he care what happens to Steve?

Steve stands there, looking from the armor to Tony, and is probably waiting for an apology Tony won’t give him. The stalemate doesn’t last long, and Steve finally seems to remember why he broke down Tony’s door when he says, “There’s an attack. The Serpent Society. We can use your help.” He’s still out of breath and Tony winces at that.

“Why?” Tony asks.

“Huh?”

“Why do you need my help?” Tony clarifies.

Steve straightens his shoulders and widens his stance enough that Tony can feel his authoritative presence on the other side of the room. “Because you’re an Avenger.” Something about the word ‘Avenger’ makes Tony’s blood boil and he can feel Extremis respond. Steve takes a few steps back, all the while keeping his eyes firmly on Tony’s. “Your eyes… What’s going on?” he asks. Tony doesn’t hear fear in his voice, but there is still something off about the way Steve frames the question.

“Are they red?” Tony asks. Steve nods. “It’s just a weird side-effect of this strand of Extremis,” he explains, though he leaves out how he figured out how to neutralize it a long time ago and instead chose to keep it because he liked the way it commands attention. He takes a deep breath and tries to will away the anger and finally tells Steve, “I’m not going.”

It’s now Steve’s turn to finally ask, “Why?”

Tony shrugs. “I don’t want to.” The half-finished bottle of gin is still sitting on the floor next to his bed. He picks it up and takes a long swig, all the while holding eye contact with Steve to make his point clear that he’s staying right here.

“Fine,” Steve says at a volume that’s not much softer than shouting. He pulls out his mask from his belt pouch and tugs it over his face. Something about the way his hair sticks up and out of the mask makes Tony take another drink. “Feel free to join us if and when you decide to be a hero.”

The door isn’t there, so it can’t slam, but Tony’s seen Steve storm off enough to know what he’s missing.

“Don’t let anyone in,” Tony orders the armor and it walks to where the door used to be. “But also, don’t hurt anybody.” He doesn’t care if that doesn’t make sense.

His only real option is to fall back asleep, so he curls into himself and doesn’t so much dream as remember all the things he wishes he couldn’t. In his mind, Steve falls to the ocean and a red earth explodes in the sky. He thinks about Steve, stomping into the workshop and saying _I remember_ like it meant anything, as if their relationship had been something special enough to ruin.

None of this was supposed to matter anymore. That was the whole point of Tony’s choice to stay inverted.

Sleep comes, eventually, and the nightmares are so much better than the memories.

He wakes up some indefinite time later to what sounds like an earthquake outside the walls. His head still hurts but it’s better than before and the unwieldy exhaustion he had been balancing has downgraded to just heaviness along his eyes and shoulders. He battles a strange impulse to put on the suit and check and see what exactly is going on outside because whatever it is will swallow him whole.

Instead he takes an indulgently long shower before wandering the mansion in search of something small to eat that will settle his heaving stomach and then maybe something a little stronger to wash it down. He finds a bran muffin on the counter of the kitchen and some orange juice to mix with vodka in the fridge. The muffin goes down first, followed by the orange juice mixture with so much alcohol he can see through it.

There is another booming sound outside and Tony finally decides to indulge his curiosity and look out the window. It’s what he expected, at least. The Avengers are across the street in Central Park and fighting what Tony is almost sure is Fin Fang Foom, flanked by members of the Serpent Society. From here he can see Anaconda and Viper and it looks like it has been a long, costly fight. Most of the park has been reduced to timber and mud and many of the buildings nearby have sustained serious structural damage. It’d be kind of amazing that the mansion’s still standing if Tony didn’t know about all the extra protective elements he’s installed and built into it in his own universe.

The Avengers look tired and almost beat. Their costumes are ripped and most of them are bloody and bruised. Tony chugs the last of his drink and sets it down on the windowsill while trying to tell himself this isn’t his fight. It isn’t his world, and even if it was, he isn’t an Avenger anymore.

The armor comes anyway and envelopes his skin because sometimes it thinks it knows Tony better than he knows himself. He’ll have to find a way to reprogram it soon so that it doesn’t do that.

In seconds, he’s across the deserted street and landing right next to Steve. He cringes when his feet sink a few inches into the mud with a gross sloshing sound and momentarily wonders if he should just turn back. Steve’s yelling something, either at him, or the team as a whole, Tony can’t tell with the commotion. Tony dodges Fin’s footfalls to get closer to the action

“Iron Man,” Steve says, and his voice doesn’t convey any emotion. “We think if we can trip the thing up, then he’ll fall over.”

Tony shakes his head. Possibly, _maybe_ , that would work. But it’s going to be difficult. “And what about the rest of them?” Tony gestures to the members of the Serpent Society currently present.

“The rest of us can handle that.”

“The rest of us?” Tony asks, and it clicks right away. Steve has given him a job.

Tony takes the skies without confirming he’s actually going to do what Steve says. Up here, he can get a little situational awareness, and decide whether Steve’s plan had merit. Tony fires a quick repulsor beam at the dragon-like being’s eye—mostly to distract it—and flies behind him so fast that Fin Fang Foom stumbles as he tries to turn around. Tony attempts the maneuver again, and this time nothing happens. The Makluan was always more intelligent than it looked.

It’s been so long since Tony has had to fight the creature, he can barely remember how exactly he did it before. There were missiles, he recollects, but that might not be the best approach in Central Park.  He flies close enough to be swatted away but misses just narrowly being hit. Below him Avengers are screaming as they engage in hand to hand combat with the rest of the Serpent Society.

That’s when it becomes clear—Fin is here for a reason, but he’s not the type to serve anyone besides himself. Of course, Tony has to have that realization right when a hot flame tickles his left side. The armor falters for a half-second, an unexpected hiccup which sends sharp jolt of adrenaline through Tony’s skin, but it re-rights so quickly he sets the thought aside. Someone on the ground screams, and at the moment, that’s the priority.

Tony flies higher above the few trees that have managed to withstand the battle. From up here he can see the entire situation in clarity. There’s the Avengers—each facing off against a different member of the Serpent Society—and then there’s the dragon himself. Fin’s breathing fire indiscriminately at hero and villain alike and trampling over anything he can; he’s looking from side to side as if he’s trying to find something.

 _Oh, that’s it_ , Tony realizes. He’s trying to find a way out.

“Steve!” he screams and manages to miss another wave of fire by feet. It takes him exactly twenty-five seconds to remember he’s not hooked into the Avengers’ communication systems, and then two more to get Extremis to find the right radio frequency. “Steve, Nomad,” he tries again and drops twenty feet in the air to avoid Fin’s jaws. “He’s trying to get away… I think he’s under the control of someone on the ground.” The armor drops just enough he has to fight to push himself up at eye level, but he’s able to do it seamlessly. When the HUD sends up a warning light that essentially means ‘beware the fire-breathing dragon,’ he ignores it because it’s so obvious.

Tony hears Steve’s heavy breathing before he speaks, signaling that the fighting on the ground must be fierce. “So, you’re saying we need… to take out whoever’s controlling… him?”

“No! If we break the connection, we still have a Makluan stomping around Central Park.”

“Then what—” Tony hears Steve grunt and then what he’s sure is the sound of someone else’s bones breaking, “—should we do?”

Tony pauses in the air and studies the scene again. It should be simple. If only they could find a way to subdue the monster.

He sees Anaconda fiddling with his watch, and the plan falls into place.

“Do you see Anaconda?” Tony asks and sneaks a glance to the ground to watch Steve figure it out.

“It’s the watch, huh?”

“That’s my best guess at the moment. Can you take him down?”

Steve chuckles and Tony hears him knock out the person he’s currently fighting. “Yeah, I think I can do that.” Tony watches out of the corner of his eye as Steve’s cape flows across the battlefield and he uses a repulsor beam to blast a goon just before he attacks Steve. “Thanks, Shellhead,” Steve says and makes a saluting gesture in Tony’s general direction.

Anaconda is big and the fight between the two takes longer than Tony is expecting. In the meantime, he tries to keep Fin confused and only focused on himself. It’s only partially working. The armor is behaving strangely, too, and he seems to be missing seconds of reaction time, a big problem when dealing with a fire-breathing alien.

“I got it!” Steve announces.

“Good! What does it look like?”

“It’s just some dials… I’m not sure how to disable it…”

“Try one and see what happens!” Tony screams. It’s getting hard to stay up here with his armor sputtering like this.

There is a short pause before Steve gets back on the communication device. “Ok, tried something… are you seeing any differences?

“No…” Tony starts but notices that Fin’s eyelids are drooping, and his steps are getting heavy. “Yes, yes… that. Do that.” Steve must follow-through, because the Makluan begins to sag to its knees. “How do you like that?” Night, night,” he taunts, and Fin Fang Foom looks just about to succumb, so he flies above him to inspect the scene and gloat. That must upset him, because Fin releases one more breath of fire before falling down completely.

Tony tells the armor to prepare for the heat, but the armor fails just as Tony remembers that Fin’s fire is actually made up of an acidic compound and it had been so long since he had faced off against the alien, that he had never thought to build safety measures to avoid it into his current suit.

The armor melts off of him as he falls and any nanosecond it’s going to reform and fix itself, but the longer he falls the less certain that feels. _This is it_ , he thinks. _I’m going to die because of fucking Fin Fang Foom_. He had tried to save the entire universe, but no, it’s going to be a battle for Central Park that really does him in.

It hits him. Tony doesn’t want to die, not like this, not when the very fabric of reality seems to be unraveling. Not when it doesn’t matter. Not when there is so much he can do.

Then someone catches him in their arms and it turns out that Tony doesn’t have to die.

The whiplash is enough to give him an instant headache, but he misses the ground by a few yards and that’s what matters. When the pressure of gravity is no longer pulling him down, he twists his head up to see Steve’s broad chest and the Nomad mask staring down at him.

It’s the probable concussion, but Steve seems to be… flying. Maybe Tony’s delirious but Steve is moving smoothly through the sky. The motion feels safe and comforting, and for the first time in a long time, Tony feel protected. He curls into Steve, like a pathetic child, and it isn’t even an excuse to get closer to those sculpted abs.

“Tony,” Steve whispers into his ear. “Tony, are you ok?” He’s insistent as he slowly sets Tony down on his feet in one of the only places within a mile radius that hasn’t been completely stomped into oblivion and gently shakes Tony as if that’s something that will finally get him to pay attention.

“’Mmm fine,” Tony mumbles into the little fabric that covers this Steve’s chest. It’s true, because he is, but he can’t seem to step away from Steve and actually feel fine. He remains motionless; Steve strangely allows it. “You can fly,” he says, needing confirmation on what exactly just happened.

“I don’t like to, but yes, I can,” Steve whispers in his hair and the gesture is both familiar and too sweet and Tony finally has the impetus he needs to stand up straight so that they are eye level.

“Wait—what—when—how?” It’s a lot of questions all rolled into one, but Tony won’t accept an explanation that doesn’t properly answer all of them.

Steve sighs and takes a step back. Tony misses the heat of him, and the shorts he’s been wearing since the incursion don’t provide any protection from the fall winds. “The cape,” he begins to explain as he reaches behind and lifts it up. “It flies. Tony—” He stops himself and then changes his answer to, “—no I mean my Tony—fixed it so that it would do that.”

“But… huh?” Tony shakes his head, confused about what he just learned. This Steve could fly this entire time?

“I don’t prefer to, but without the shield, sometimes I need the advantage.” He looks almost embarrassed as he explains it.

Something about that twists everything in Tony’s heart and he shivers for reasons he can’t explain but knows have nothing to do with the temperature. This Steve, with his cape and sincerity, has completely cracked every defense Tony’s been maintaining since the Red Onslaught. Hell, it’s cracking every other defense he’s put up since that fateful day Tony watched as Steve emerged from melting ice. Like this, it’s almost as if he’s seeing Steve for the first time.

Except it’s nothing like that, at all.

What it’s really like is waking up in the morning, wandering to the tower’s kitchen, and finding Steve already there and reading the newspaper in the sunlight provided by the floor-to-ceiling windows. The light would have made his wet hair glisten. It was almost never that easy for them—there were too many villains and crises and late nights that never led to early mornings—but the few times it happened, it always caught Tony off guard. He wouldn’t think _I love him_ or _he’s beautiful_ , but... _this is my life_.

And as he looks on at this Steve and sees a man he knows hit the ocean before his world was blown to oblivion, Tony thinks about how strange everything is. This is it. _This is my life_.

“Are you ok?” Steve asks, and it hurts to know he’s so much like the man Tony remembers.

 _Except my Steve is old, angry, and dead_ , Tony thinks, and he shakes his head. He’s nothing like this man. “I need to find my armor,” is all he needs to say before it’s sliding against his skin, having finally reformed after the acid. Unfortunately, the confidence Tony used to carry before it malfunctioned doesn’t come with it and while he feels warmer, he feels no less vulnerable.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.” Steve gestures at the armor and places a firm hand on his shoulder. It’s a sign of trust that Tony knows he should immediately rebuff, but it feels right to know that this Steve has forgiven him for his earlier sins.

“I’ll never get used to _that_ ,” Tony responds and makes it clear he’s talking about the cape.

Steve says, “That’s surprising,” and Tony supposes it is based on what Steve knows about his world.

Tony doesn’t try to make it any clearer. At the moment, he likes the ambiguity they are operating in. Any more clarity would ruin it. “We should clean up.” It’s deflection, and maybe slightly manipulation, but Steve perks up at the suggestion he should be doing something, and Tony congratulates himself on managing to understand Steve in every universe.

“Yes, we should. Are you going to be ok?” Steve asks one more time.

 _No_ , Tony thinks. He’s had enough near-death experiences that he should be expecting this one to feel routine… yet, it doesn’t. Tony isn’t sure what to make of that. “I’ll be fine.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It takes hours for the Avengers to be relieved of their rebuilding efforts. Central Park is still reduced to broken trees and mud, but the surrounding streets have cleared enough that they are now choked with yellow taxis as jaded New Yorkers return to their normal afternoon commutes. “Time to go home, Shellhead,” Steve says affectionately with an arm around Tony’s shoulders. Tony feels a strong sense of relief that they only have to go across the street to the mansion, and subsequently a shower and rest. This feels like how it used to be, when the biggest battles could still end before dinner.

Dinner sounds nice; he has barely eaten since he arrived. A drink sounds even nicer; his head is starting to hurt, and he’ll need something strong to make it stop.

They return to the mansion to find that paintings have been knocked from the walls and all the dining wear in the kitchen is in shards on the floor. Without direction, the team begins to clean up and that makes Tony nostalgic, too. The Avengers used to operate as a unit, and now…

Now that doesn’t matter, he reminds himself. It’s no longer relevant to his current goals—he can’t save the multiverse if he’s wallowing in the loss of his birth world.

(That’s how he’s going to have to think of it if he wants to move on. That's how he is not going to care.)

Tony itches to get down to the workshop where he can begin to reevaluate his electromagnet plan when Steve puts two strong hands on his shoulders and lightly leads him the kitchen table before pushing him down into a chair. At some point in their cleaning process, one of the team members has ordered a pizza and is now handing it out on paper plates. Tony takes a slice and he knows just by smell he’s eaten from this exact restaurant. He turns to Steve and asks, “Famous Famiglia?”

Steve nods yes and says something that Tony can’t understand through the mouthful of pizza he’s trying to ingest. Tony can’t help but watch him, fascinated by the way his mouth moves and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “You’ve had some before?” It takes a moment for Tony to realize that Steve is asking about the pizza and not anything else.

“We used to eat there all the time.” Tony takes a bite. It tastes like how looking at those old paintings on the wall feels and he wonders where exactly all those Avengers paintings ended up; it certainly wasn’t San Francisco.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Steve’s smile is big, and Tony knows it shouldn’t feel so comforting to see him like this. Tony nods, agreeing with Steve’s assertion all too easily. “Good job, Avengers,” Steve says to everyone sitting around the table.

“If only we had that sort of luck when we fought the Cabal,” Wanda adds and the table nods like that’s been on their minds the entire time.

 _Oh right, the incursions are still happening._ That thought deflates the weird weightless mood Tony’s been enjoying for the last half hour.

Steve sighs and puts down his pizza. No longer is he unbelievably young; Tony finally sees more than a superficial resemblance to the man he last saw before the incursion. Not the driven idealist he fought alongside for much of his adult life, but the world weary old soldier. “I know it’s disheartening, but we can’t give up on saving the world from the multiverse collapse or from the more routine threats we face. That is our job as Avengers.” He stands up and braces both hands on the table. The Nomad cape makes him look even bigger and more formidable. “We will stop the Cabal. We have no other choice and then we will stop the incursions. I know some of you don’t believe that that’s possible, but I’m going to tell you I won’t buy into the notion that there is any threat we can’t face.”

Tony feels a familiar emotion welling up inside him. He wants so badly to believe Steve’s optimism.

“I know we are the best people for the job, and we will keep working on this for as long as we can. We can’t rest on our laurels, yet. There is too much we still need to do. But… I think the most prudent thing right now is get some rest.” His smile falters and he pushes himself away from the table. “Tomorrow is a new day, Avengers.” He looks smaller as he walks away with his shoulders hunched and his eyes on the floor, and Tony notices that he left some pizza slices on his plate.

Even if the act of standing up makes his head swim, Tony gets up to follow him. Steve’s faster than he looks, and Tony has to run to catch him before he’s done unlocking his bedroom door. “Steve—” Tony calls. Steve’s shoulders deflate significantly enough that his cape grazes the floor.

“Can I help you, Tony?” he asks without looking up from whatever is so interesting on the rug.

Tony finally manages to get close enough that Steve can’t help but look up and see him. He looks so tired. “I think the question is _can I help you_?”

“I’m fine,” he protests, but it’s clearly not true. Tony gives him a look to make sure this Steve knows he’s not buying any of this bullshit. “It’s fine Tony, I’m just tired. Long day.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

Steve turns around so that his back is against his door and he gives Tony a look Tony can’t begin to unravel. “I know you aren’t the same… but you remind me so much of…” He sighs and his chin rests on his chest. “There is nothing you can do Tony, it’s just sometimes it feels like the problems keep getting out of our control. I’m not sure I can keep doing it by myself. I used to have him, and that made it so much easier. But everything keeps getting bigger—”

This is the moment that Tony should just walk away and accept he can’t always give Steve what he needs. It’s not as if he hasn’t tried, before. But Steve looks so sad and lost and Tony isn’t supposed to feel like this, and maybe he just needs to try a new tactic…

Goddammit.

Tony kisses Steve.

He runs his fingers through Steve’s hair and Tony can feel the dirt and sweat that’s making it stick straight up. Steve smells like pizza and exertion and the thrill of what it was like to wear a mask and have a secret identity. He kisses back as if Tony’s as essential as breathing, as if he doesn’t need sleep and rest, as if Tony’s lips will fix everything that’s weighing him down. His hands wrap around Tony’s waist and Tony can feel them on his back through the armor. The force of Steve’s grip is pressing him flush with Steve’s chest. It makes the door heave with the effort of staying in place.

Tony has an easy way to fix that. He reaches out past Steve’s body and fumbles with the doorknob. The door springs open and the two of them stumble backward with all the pent-up momentum they have. Tony manages to kick the door closed before Steve falls back on the bed and Tony climbs up into his lap. The mattress bends under the weight of the armor and Steve makes a sound somewhere in the back of his throat when Tony settles in and straddles his legs.

“Take it off,” Steve whispers into his covered ear and Tony feels the vibrations through the armor. To emphasize his point. Steve runs his hands across the smooth surface of the suit and uses his thumbs to trace any indentations.

Because Tony is an expert lover with a reputation around the world that he’s only finally found a way to deserve, he awkwardly whispers, “Okay,” and mentally orders the armor to slither off his skin. Steve whimpers at that, but it’s a good sound, and Tony lets the armor reform be the door. He’s only wearing his swim shorts underneath and despite the fact that Steve had only just seen him this undressed earlier in the day, he runs his open-palmed hands across every part of Tony’s chest. Tony shutters when Steve accidentally thumbs his right nipple, and he moans when Steve repeats the gesture, this time on purpose.

Tony has had a lot of ideas about how something like this could have gone from a long time ago, but in no fantasy did he just sit there, stupefied by the very movements Steve is making. There is a tiny voice in his mind that keeps reminding him that this Steve isn’t his, but Tony shuts it out by running his hands around the edges of the Nomad costume. It’s tight and clingy and Tony has to dig in to get his fingers under the fabric, but he’s rewarded with Steve’s breathy sigh against his neck. He responds by pushing the fabric off, but it’s tight enough that it catches on Steve’s shoulders and causes his arms to be pinned behind him. That seems to work for Steve, because he moans, “yes…”, and Tony goes with it. Without freeing Steve completely from the costume, Tony makes sure to touch every part of Steve that’s available to him, even if he has to push himself back from and eventually off of Steve’s lap.

And that’s fine by Tony. He gets on his knees and enjoys the view. Steve’s flushed all the way down to the bottom of his stomach, with the deep V of the Nomad costume paralleling the jut of his hip bones and creating a natural focus on the bulge just below his belt.

This is going to be so good.

Tony rubs his hands up and down Steve’s clothed thighs and looks up at Steve with the biggest shit-eating grin he can muster. He should be concerned about how wrong this is, but the thought leaves as soon as it enters his mind and he doesn’t try and chase it. Steve’s panting as he looks down at Tony and Tony has a feeling that the thought has entered Steve’s mind as well, and isn’t disappearing as easily as he would have hoped, so Tony asks, “you sure?”

Steve threads his hands through Tony’s sweaty hair. Tony expects him to pull him close or push him away, but Steve just leaves is fingers like that in a gesture so sweet, Tony’s breath catches with it. Tony looks to where he hands are resting—far enough up on Steve’s thighs that he could graze the outline of Steve’s large erection with his thumbs—and begins to move them to break the moment.

It doesn’t work. Steve’s hand slides down to Tony’s chin and tilts his face up so that he can look into Tony’s eyes. His brow furrows and he’s clearly confused. The type of confusion that generally means the direction of the evening is about to change rapidly.

Tony tries to right whatever went wrong, and asks, “What is it?”

“Your eyes… they’re… they’re pink.”

Well, that’s unexpected.

Tony stands up on his heels and looks around the room for a mirror. When he finds one, he sees himself—mostly naked, dirty, and clearly erect—staring back at him, except Steve is right. His eyes are glowing pink. And that has never happened before.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks when Tony doesn’t do anything but look at himself. Tony shakes his head and tries to make sense of it all. He notices that the color is fading back to his normal blue the longer he stares, and then suddenly any trace of the strange color is gone.

“I’m fine,” he says because finally it’s true. “False alarm. Nothing to worry about.”

Steve stands up (Tony can hear the old mansion floorboards creak) and walks to where Tony is standing. Tony can see him through the mirror but doesn’t turn to look Steve in the face. That doesn’t seem to matter to Steve, who maintains eye contact while he wraps his arms around Tony’s waist. He looks wrecked, from both the fight before and Tony’s hands. It’s a good look on him and while it should be stirring passion somewhere deep inside Tony, he instead only feels tenderness. The thrill of affection that accompanies Steve’s presence rushes to his face and this time Tony both sees and feels when his eyes shift to purple and then bright fuchsia.

For some reason that makes Steve tighten his grip behind him. “Is it like how your eyes get red when you’re angry? Is it a problem?” he asks, like Steve’s concerned that something is wrong with him.

Tony supposes something is.

“It’s nothing,” he lies. “Extremis is acting weird, nothing to worry about.”

“Do you need to do something about it?” Steve doesn’t look convinced.

“Right now, the only thing I’m concerned about is _this_.” It’s not smooth, but Tony twists in Steve’s grip so now they are face to face and he can palm Steve’s contained erection. Tony can see the exact moment Steve decides not to push the issue. He takes a deep, choppy breath and closes his eyes tight. That just makes Tony increase the pressure on Steve’s cock. “You like that, huh?” Tony says and makes his voice purposely lecherous.

Steve smiles as if he gets the joke and Tony puts his hands to work unzipping the last of the Nomad costume. Tony must have finally done something right, because Steve’s cock stands straight, the pinkish skin in contrast to the dark blue fabric. It wasn’t as if Tony didn’t know Steve would be big—he’s spent enough time improving Steve’s costume to have an idea—but there is something different in just being able to feel his cock heavy in his hand. The idea that this is happening stuns him for a second, but then Steve’s hands find a way around Tony’s and begin to slip off shorts he’s still wearing.

Tony gasps when Steve’s wraps his hand firmly around the base of Tony’s dick and runs his thumb up and down. It’s a technique Tony isn’t aware he’d be so fond of, and he’s about to ask where exactly Steve learned it until he remembers that he’s not the first Tony this Steve’s ever had his hands on.

Maybe it’s just jealousy, but that realization sits uneasy in Tony’s mind. Steve has the upper hand here. He clearly knows what Tony likes and yet, all Tony can do is guess when it comes to Steve.

Tony shakes Steve’s hand off of him, without thinking, and begins to walk Steve back to the bed. Both of them fall flat and bounce against the mattress. Tony quickly makes sure he’s on top, so he can straddle Steve’s knees, leaving him just far enough that Steve has to reach to touch him, which is exactly what he wants. From this position, he pushes Steve knees apart and fits himself in between them. Steve’s practically pornographic, with the Nomad costume half off him and zipped so low his cock bounces against his stomach and what’s even better is that, despite looking completely undone, he doesn’t seem to have an ounce of shame as Tony takes his time committing all of it to memory—from the drop of precome that smeared on his abs when his cock bounced against them with the fall to the way his hair is standing on end.

It’s good and Tony _wants_ in a way he hasn’t wanted sex in quite possibly a decade, but all of it sits uneasily on his skin. It’s the wrong way to think of it—the sort of trust Steve is handing him is given, not earned—but it feels painfully obvious that all of this is for a man Tony may have never even been.

 _Maybe I don’t deserve this_ , he thinks, and the thought feels so foreign to him he has to shake it off. He left this feeling behind and he chooses now, in this moment, to reject it again and show Steve just how much he deserves everything.

Tony strategizes and tries to weigh the benefit of keeping Steve’s outfit on and getting more access if he removes it. It’s a hard choice but Tony settles on leaning into every part of his fantasy and leaves the costume hanging off of him. At least, in this position he can still tilt his body forward and lick Steve’s cock from base to tip. Steve’s thighs tremble next to him and Tony makes a show of doing it again, as wet as possible, so that when he finishes, a strand of spit connects his mouth to the tip of Steve’s cock for a few seconds.

Steve doesn’t do anything in response to that, besides breathe heavier and stare, enraptured. Tony makes sure the smile he’s wearing is shameless, bordering on obscene, so that when he shifts his head and mouths the underside of Steve’s cock, Steve is aware of how much Tony wants this.

That want, amplified by the musky smell of Steve’s groin and the sensation of his soft, sensitive skin against Tony’s own lips, goes straight Tony’s own dick. The tip is rubbing against the edge of Steve’s bedspread and as Tony dips his head and takes into his mouth as much of Steve’s cock he can comfortably handle, he grinds his own hips down against the fabric just to feel the friction.

“Mmhmmm,” he hums around Steve’s cock.

“Yes, yes, yes—” Steve starts repeating. Tony’s hand travels up Steve’s torso and pinches one of those exposed nipples, earning him a much louder, “yes,” for his efforts. Steve’s hands are gripping the sheets and every muscle in his body feels so tight, Tony can feel the vibrations coming off of his thighs.

Tony rubs his hands against those thighs in what he hopes is a calming way. “It’s okay,” he says reassuringly, only moving his lips far enough from Steve’s cock that he can annunciate. In an effort to prove his point, he wraps his lips around Steve’s cock again and slips more and more of it in his mouth, savoring the way his mouth stretches to accommodate it. Extremis is good about knowing when to dampen his gag reflex, and he forces the tip of Steve’s cock against the back of his throat and then even further that that. He looks up at Steve, who is now resting on his elbows, and searches for some sort of validation.

Steve’s face is more awe than sex, as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing is even physically possible, and that gives Tony the motivation he needs to slowly swallow around Steve’s cock, drawing the action out and willing Extremis to keep him from choking. That act seems to do what Tony intended and Steve falls back into bed, muttering his name.

Giving blowjobs has always been one of Tony’s favorite things, it’s something about the way the soft skin feels on his tongue as he runs it against the shaft. Tony focuses on that as he slowly moves his mouth up and down Steve’s cock. He experiments with different levels of suction, with hardening the tip of his tongue and flicking it against the cock’s tip, and with taking Steve so far down his nose is filled with the smell of Steve’s musky and wiry pubic hair. His mind wanders as he continues on, and all of it seems to work for Steve, but once again Tony feels like he’s missing something important he really would like to know.

He’s interrupted by the feeling of Steve gently caressing his hair. Steve doesn’t pull and Tony’s not sure if that’s politeness or an assumption based on a history that isn’t his. Tony takes his time responding and makes sure that when he finally removes his mouth from the tip of Steve’s cock, it makes an obscene popping sound.

Steve looks as if he’s been through a fight far more intense than the one he just finished. He’s sweaty and flushed and his eyes… Tony sighs. He can tell Steve was close. “I’m not sure if you wanted to do something else,” Steve says in a way of an apology and he must be able to tell Tony’s annoyed at having been interrupted. Tony goes through a short list of things they could to do and then cross references it with a list of things he _will_ do, and ends up confused with the result.

They could use their hands, holding each other close and whispering sweet nothings. He could fuck Steve while they kiss and gently touch each other. Steve could fuck him, saying wonderful things like “I got you” and “you’re so good, Tony’.

They could be lovers and not just two people getting the other off for their own pleasure.

It’s not as if the logistics would be a problem, because Tony always keeps condoms and lube in his suit. He’s sure Steve actually wants romance and intimacy, but as he stares down at Steve with his ripped costume and gold cape inelegantly tucked behind him, Tony knows wanting and needing are two separate things, and what Tony needs right now is a barrier between the two of them.

“Hmmm… I have one thing in mind,” Tony says and puts on his best sexy voice, hides it behind a showman’s smile, and runs his hands down his own body from neck to thighs. He takes a few moments to pinch his nipples and to trace his own muscles. Steve reaches to touch also, but Tony bats him away and makes it clear that this is what he wants and Steve settles back down and looks like he’s enjoying the show.

 _He’s so trusting_ , Tony thinks, and he wants to be worthy of that trust. It takes a few seconds to push that feeling away, hopefully to the same place he’s been storing the loss of everyone on his Earth, and take himself in hand. It turns out he only has to somewhat exaggerate the thrill of pleasure that climbs up his spine, and that’s good because it means he’s _only_ a little broken and changed. “Fuck, yes,” he says as he shuts his eyes tight and wills himself to avoid saying Steve’s name.

“Tony, wow,” Steve mumbles, as if in a trance, and Tony wants to freeze this moment in time and lock it somewhere deep in his brain, even he’s not sure what he’d feel about it in the future. He tries to pretend the man whose thighs he is now straddling isn’t anyone he knows, anyone whose opinion he cares about, and definitely isn’t one of his oldest friends.

It’s hard to convince himself that Steve is just another warm body lucky enough to be in bed with him, but he manages to wrangle Extremis enough to help him remember just the right things. There’s not any real buildup and he’s surprised when he orgasms with a grunt and not much else to show for it than the come across Steve’s chest. There’s no moment of bliss or trembling muscles, no moment when he forgets everything but the pleasure, just his heavy breathing and a sense of detachment. Tony keeps his eyes shut tight to avoid the disappointment on Steve’s face.

The bed creaks beneath him and he can feel Steve adjusting himself beneath his thighs. “Tony,” Steve says, and it accompanies the tender caress on his hip. “Tony, look at me.” The reflexive compulsion that causes Tony to open his eyes is the product of years of missions and battles.

There’s so much in that look Steve has on his face, Tony reaches out and cups his cheek in his hand. “I’m going to make you feel so good,” he says and moves his hand slowly down Steve’s chest to the mess of come on his stomach. He has to force it, but he puts on his best devilish grin and scoops up a little with his fingers before bringing them to his mouth. He sucks on the come, moans on his fingers, and makes sure all of it is loud enough that it has his intended effect. Steve drops back down onto the bed, and Tony scoots back so that he is comfortably kneeling in the space between Steve’s legs and can bend down to lap up what’s left of his own come.

He makes it purposefully obscene and revels in the way Steve’s abs tremble underneath his tongue. “Yes,” Steve whispers and Tony wants to remind him they haven’t even gotten to the best part, but he stays silent and licks his way down to where Steve’s hard cock’s been standing at attention. He’s painfully aware of how long all of this has been going on and elects to take Steve’s entire cock down as far as it can go instead of drawing any more of this out. He bobs his head, up and down, and listens to the way Steve’s words devolve into a constant affirmation and his breath hitches with every movement.

Steve tries without much effort to push Tony’s head away before he comes, but Tony’s stubborn and committed to the show he’s currently putting on. Steve makes a rough sound when his come hits the back of Tony’s throat, but he doesn’t say anything, and that’s okay, because all Tony can do right now is slowly move his mouth off and lick his lips.

“ _Wow_.” Astonishment at what Tony can do is written all over Steve’s face, but something else is there, too, and Tony slowly pushes himself up the bed to avoid it. He stumbles when his feet hit the ground, and Steve places a strong arm around his torso and gently pulls him back. Tony’s tired and it seems that now his muscles are finally feeling the weakness from before. He should fight it, but every effort just doubles the feeling of exhaustion, and he falls back into bed with Steve wrapped around him.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tony wakes up to his heart pounding and Steve sleeping soundly next to him. He’s everything Tony remembers; he’s beautiful and strong and even asleep you can see goodness etched on his features. Looking at him hurts.

Tony should be celebrating, he knows this. He should be patting himself on the back for achieving an important milestone a younger and more naive version of himself had always wanted. _Tony Stark has finally fucked Steve Rogers,_ but all he feels is emptiness edged with a guilt he’s sure isn’t even about this particular action. So, he looks and looks and tries to avoid the feeling that’s been threatening to overtake him since he woke up in jail knowing he was now essentially alone. Because no matter how much he sees the man next to him, he knows this isn’t for him. The man he wanted—no, _wants_ , he corrects in an effort at self-awareness—isn’t here.

A tear prickles his eyelashes before he realizes his eyes are watery and Tony knows he needs to be anywhere but in Steve’s room. As gently as he can, he lifts himself from the bed and calls for the armor to encompass him before making his way downstairs to the workshop. As he leaves, he sees that same photo from his bedside table on Steve’s dresser and in the morning’s light, it makes the decision to walk away so much easier, because it reminds him none of this is his.

The workshop is all transistors and computer screens that buldge in the middle. It reminds him of so many Avengers missions, late nights revolutionizing SI, and the way the armor used to feel when he had to snap it into place. It’s not necessarily a positive feeling—even now, he knows it’s temporary and entirely based on false pretenses. Honestly, it feels good to just be alone, he thinks as he settles into the big chair. He presses a couple of buttons on the console in front of him and watches as the screens warm up. He could upgrade all of this in a week. The thought makes him smile.

It doesn’t take him long to go through the file structure and find the schematics to Steve’s new flying Nomad suit and where his dead counterpart hid his research on the incursions. It’s clear the man had the same priorities. It should feel comforting to know someone so well, but that thought sits uneasily in his chest and digs up an uncomfortable emotion he chooses not to name.

The files he finds in this section pretty much say what he expects. There are blueprints for bombs Tony’s pretty sure he didn’t have the technology for back in the day and notes about how to predict an incursion. There is even an entire section outlining how to evacuate earth in under eight hours. Tony remembers the night Reed and he wrote that.

One file stands out, however, and he clicks on it to find long lines of code using math he’s not entirely an expert in but still recognizes. It looks like something Reed could have thought up. Inter-universal dynamics, or something similar, and he isn’t expecting it. After spending a few minutes reading it, he sees that it’s coding a model about universal movement. There is a basic UI associated with it, and Tony opens it in the hope that it will explain more of what he needs to know. It’s so simple that Tony doesn’t get it at first. Just a few sliders with mathematical formulas as labels and a graph. He presses “Go” and watches as the graph forms. He does a few more times, each time trying a different combination of the sliders.

And that’s when it hits him. This is an incursion predictor, or better explained, an incursion probability calculator. His other self had been trying to figure out when the next incursion was likely to occur. The model seems to include every possible variable. Tony looks back at the coding and this time he sees it; it’s not just when the incursion will occur, but what are the chances that the incursion will occur with an earth overrun with Mapmakers or one just uninhibited by people.

It isn’t going to solve the problem, they are all just probabilities anyway. Tony goes back to the file structure and finds a record of all known incursions that have happened; he spends the next couple of hours trying to validate the model, but with no success. The math is sound, but the mechanisms causing the incursions are too difficult to model prescriptively.

Tony sighs, runs another simulation, and goes looking through the desk drawer for something to drink.

“He didn’t keep anything down here,” Steve says behind him. Tony freezes and tries to shake the feeling that he’s been caught doing something wrong. “He knew I didn’t like it.”

Tony keeps his back to Steve. “Why are you here?” Tony asks and hopes it sounds as hostile as possible.

“Why did you leave?”

“I woke up, and…” he briefly tries to figure out what lie to say but settles on the truth. “I realized you're not the Steve I actually..."  _Want, need, love?_   he thinks. "Whatever,” he settles on saying when the right work doesn’t present itself.

Steve’s quiet for a minute, but when he talks it’s focused and to the point. “You mean there actually is a Steve in your own world.”

“Yes.”

“You said Steve Rogers wasn’t around on your earth,” Steve accuses.

Tony shrugs. “No, I didn’t. I just chose not to tell you.”

“Why did you lie?” That surprise in Steve’s voice is what breaks Tony’s heart.

“Because that’s what I do. I lie. _I omit_.” Tony over-enunciates the ‘t’. He’s just so tired.

He isn’t supposed to care anymore. 

“Has it ever worked out for you?” Steve asks.

The sound Tony makes isn’t anything close to the laugh he intended. How do you answer a question like that? In the end, the lies had only bought them time, and that time had meant nothing when it was needed most.

The both of them jump when the workshop is suddenly engulfed in a loud siren sound and flashing lights. Steve reaches for the nearest console, but instead of turning one of the knobs, he just leans bodily against it, as if he needs it to keep him upright. His other hand covers his face and that’s how Tony knows it’s bad. “It’s an incursion.”

“Yeah, because that’s exactly what we need right now,” Tony sighs and stands up. In all the time he’s been here, he hasn’t exactly figured out what these Avengers actually did about the incursions.

“Alert OFF!” Steve yells at the ceiling and the piercing noise and blinding lights stop. Tony looks at him and thinks about how fucking young this Steve is and how uncomfortable it’s always been to see him over his head.

It’s a futile impulse, but Tony would do anything to smooth the worry off his face. It doesn’t matter which universe he’s in, that face breaks him.

Tony knows the feeling in his gut is shame because he’s lived with it too long to not recognize it immediately. It makes him want to drink. It makes him want to forget. It makes him want to dig back and capture what it was that made him shamelessly preposition Sue.

He’s a liability like this.

Steve pushes himself off the console and sets his shoulders; Tony watches like they’re both in slow motion and he sees the exact nanosecond Steve remembers that the problem is bigger than his doubts. “I need all the information we can gather on the other earth,” he commands Tony and then switches on his wrist communicator and announces to the entire mansion, “All hands on deck. Avengers Assemble.”

The phrase sends chills down Tony’s spine and he turns at once to open any sensors he can find in the current computer system. Steve leaves without saying anything else and Tony vows, if they return, to figure out what has gone wrong with his inversion.

 

* * *

 

 

It takes Tony a few minutes to figure out the sensor system, but once he does, he’s surprised at what he finds. “Thank fuck,” he mutters under his breath and flips a switch he assumes will patch him into Steve.

“I have a present for you,” a newfound confidence helps him say.

“This isn’t time for innuendo,” Steve says, severe. Tony can hear him grunt as he pulls on the skin-tight Nomad suit.

“Not my intention, but I’m glad your mind went there. Actually, it turns out the world we are about to crash into is barely populated. My readings are showing only one lifeform, and unless we’re dealing with some subterranean population, we may be in the clear this time around.” Tony can barely believe their luck.

Steve lets out an audible breath. “That’s great… What else do we know about it?”

“It seems very similar to our own. There is a strange energy emitting from the outside, but nothing malicious-looking. Other than that, I imagine it functions in ways we’re prepared to handle.” The circumstances may be… odd, but the universe is strange like that. A big smile spreads across Tony’s face. “So, it looks like there is at only one person who could probably use a lift. Why don’t we help them out?” Finally, something good.

“You’re right, Shellhead. We’re going to need your help with the bomb—”

“—what bomb?”

“The worldkiller. Tony—I mean other Tony—kept them below the workshop.” Tony can hear the chatter of other Avengers behind Steve’s voice.

Tony is surprised to hear that. Not that his counterpart built bombs, but that Steve knew about it. “Wait… what? You guys actually built—”

“—we needed options, Tony,” Steve cuts him off to say matter-of-factly. He doesn’t seem to realize why Tony’s so fazed and continues on. “Once you have that, meet us on the roof. We’ll take the quinjet. Also,” he adds, an afterthought, “What’s the universal designation on this earth?”

Tony pulls up any identifying information he can and then sinks further into the chair. Any positive feelings he was having before drain out of him. “Universal Designation: Number 616.”

There is a moment of silence between them that Tony uses to call the symbiote armor and begin finding the way to the basement. The Avengers are rapidly assembling, Tony can hear their footprints above him, but Steve is quiet until he softly says, “Oh Tony, I’m so sorry.”

Tony finds the bombs. They look less sleek, certainly more of their time, but even from the outside he can see the product of his own engineering. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he tries to explain as he inspects the one he plans to use. “That earth doesn’t exist anymore.” And then there was the fact that the population was only down to one person. Tony desperately hopes it’s no one he knows.

“I’m sure there is an explanation for this.” Steve’s trying to be reassuring, but Tony isn’t sure what he wants to be reassured about.

The bomb’s ready, so instead of answering Tony just runs to the roof and the quinjet. Everyone is suited up and in another world this would feel right. Hell, yesterday it felt right.

The trip to the incursion site is quick and Tony wishes that it wasn’t because the red earth looks in the sky looks so familiar he imagines it blown to smithereens without prompting. “Tony?” Steve asks, and reaches for his hand.

Tony bats him away. “It’s fine.” It’s not.

“I’m sorry you have to be here,” Steve says like he understands. “But the Avengers need you.”

It helps to hear that. “I know. What’s the plan, Nomad?” He adds the name in an effort to lighten up the mood.

“We rescue anyone we can, place the bomb, and do what needs to be done.” Steve’s so matter-of-fact about it, Tony’s taken aback. He wishes they had been able to talk about it like this, before. That Steve would have listened, that Tony would have understood. “Let’s go.”

Steve begins to fly off the ground and Tony is sure he’ll never get used to that sight. Tony follows, with the bomb in hand.

“Huh,” Steve says as he stalls a couple of miles off the ground.

“What is it?” Tony calls as he quickly catches up. He notices the problem before Steve has a chance to answer.

“I can’t move any further.” There is panic in Steve’s voice and Tony feels it seep into his skin. Tony tries to push the thrusters on his boots, but none of it helps. He’s fighting against an uncontrollable forcefield that is keeping him from moving any further.

“So, that’s the strange energy we’ve been encountering…” Tony says like the scientific explanation makes it any better.

“How can this…?” Steve yells into the thin air, unable to finish his own thought.

The problem doesn’t want to solidify in his head, and that tone is making it difficult for Tony to concentrate. Tony blasts a repulsor at the force field and notices the light goes straight through. He chases it as fast as he can, but he hits the same barrier. He emits a low radar signal, but it bounces right back… huh. “We need to go back!”

“We need to figure this out—”

“That’s what I’m saying! We need to regroup.” Tony isn’t sure why that’s a better idea than anything else he’s thought of, but he feels lightheaded up here, despite the armor.

Steve doesn’t agree with Tony in words, but still adjusts his direction and makes for the ground. Tony follows and loses hope for every inch of altitude he drops. The rest of the Avengers say nothing when he touches down and Steve is explaining their plight. Tony listens silently and keeps staring up the red earth.

There has to be something he can do.

“I GOT IT!” he shouts as soon as it comes to him. The repulsor beam worked… so the barrier might only allow electromagnetic radiation. However maybe it’s about speed, not mass. Tony’s sure, if he has enough time to accelerate, he could break the sound barrier, because he’s done it a thousand times before. But the speed of entry beyond the barrier could be anything between Mach one and the speed of light… and that’s a big difference. If he goes as fast as possible and bumps into the force field, he could die on contact, but it’s worth trying, he thinks. He explains the plan to everyone, and he can tell by their looks they think he’s crazy.

“What are the odds?” Steve asks instead of telling him why it’s a dumb idea.

Tony shrugs. “Not great?”

“And what about the bomb?” Mantis asks. “If you hit the barrier, would the force trigger it?”

“No,” Tony says but he looks at it one more time. He had thought about that in his own world. The mechanism cannot be initiated by movement, and nothing he sees in front of him tells him that his counterpart didn’t think of that.

The group is silent as everyone does their own internal cost-benefit calculations. It’s Steve who breaks the quiet. “I’m coming with you.”

Tony turns to look and squeaks out, “What?”

“The cape can make the same speeds—”

“No, it can’t.”

“We did tests—”

“You might not be able to come back!” Tony croaks, completely cutting Steve off and voicing the part of the plan he had been intending to keep silent. “Even if I could get through the barrier, amount of power I would need to…” Tony shakes his head and does the math in his head a couple more times. “I’m not sure I’d have the time to replenish the armor’s energy. And if I could, I don’t think I’d survive the trip.”

Steve responds the exact opposite way he should to that admission. “I’m still going.”

“No, you’re not,” Wanda shouts.

“You can’t stop me. I can’t let you do this alone.” And, as always with Steve, that’s the final word in the matter.

Tony won’t let it, of course, but they are losing time rapidly discussing this. This earth’s Cabal could show up any moment and then suddenly they would have to fight as well as argue. “Steve…” Tony purrs. He knows what he needs to do.

It’s just one more betrayal. The last, if this goes down the way he thinks it will.

Steve turns to look at him. Tony can’t read his expression, but he knows he has his attention and he closes the last few feet between them. “I guess, if I have to go out this way, you’re the person I’d want to go out with.” Steve looks so beautiful, young, and sad; Tony knows he missed so much in those years he just yearned for the man, and he regrets every minute. It’s hard to raise his hand and run it against the short hairs on Steve’s neck. Tony struggles to push himself against Steve and wind his free arm against his back, under the cape. The moment Tony’s lips catch Steve’s is pure agony, but he tells himself to enjoy it while it lasts. He only gets this.

Tony’s fingers finally find the snaps on Steve’s cape and it take a few dexterous moves until it falls off Steve’s shoulders and into Tony’s hands. Everything after that happens so fast he can barely process it.

First, Steve notices, but he can’t catch Tony because, secondly, Tony blasts off as fast as he can push the armor. He knows the force probably toppled Steve to the ground, may have even caused some injuries, but that’s a complication he can live with. He just needs to get away faster than he’s ever flown before. He breaks the sound barrier so luckily he doesn’t hear the Avengers regrouping and trying to stop him, but he knows they do because he can feel Wanda hexes around him.

They don’t work. Tony hits Mach two, then three, then four, and he goes faster and faster and wills himself not to look down. Then it’s five, and six, and this is it. This is the moment where Tony’s going to find out if he’ll finally be able to redeem himself.

He passes through the barrier like it isn’t even there at the same moment he realizes that that was going to be the last time he was ever going to see Steve.

He pushes on faster.

Nothing he sees is what he expected.

He’s in a white, dimensionless space, just like he had been when had fallen back after the Time Gem. The only distinguishing feature is the red earth he just came from above him. He falls to his knees and grips Steve’s cape closer, lets his cheek feel the soft fabric. It’s just his imagination, but in his mind, it smells like Steve.

His armor feels like it’s been pushed to the breaking point because he never stress-tested it for conditions like this. He expected to see his home one last time, but there is no Alcatraz Island here; he’ll never get to see the mansion or the tower or anything else he’s built again. There seems to be nothing, here. If he could, he’d detonate the bomb right now, but he has something else he needs to do. He brings up every sensor he can find and tries to locate the lone person stuck with him. When the armor’s systems manage to find them, Tony goes as fast as he can in that direction. Already, his power is sputtering, but if someone is still here, at least they won’t die alone.

He sees them from far above, just standing in the whiteness and surrounded by objects they seem to be collecting. The person, a man it looks like, looks up at him and—

The face is so familiar…

It can’t be…

Why him?

“Fuck,” the man says when Tony gets close enough to hear it. Tony’s feet silently hit a non-existent floor.

It’s surreal standing here and staring at a version of himself.

“How?” Tony asks the other. He knows that that black and gold armor he’s wearing makes him only a few months younger, but it’s the dried blood beneath his clearly broken nose and his eye darkening with the beginnings of a bruise that makes everything else fall into place.

“The Time Gem,” the other Tony says like it explains everything.

That’s not how it happened at all, Tony thinks, but he remembers that bruise and how he got it. He remembers Steve throwing a very well aimed punch. “I’m you, from the future.”

The other him laughs and it’s all bitterness. “There is no future.” Neither of them looks at the glowing red earth behind them. In the all-white expanse, it’s impossible to miss.

Tony looks around and wonders if the expanse covers all hundred-and-ninety-seven square miles of earth. “Are you sure you’re the only one left?”

“Yes,” his past self responds, and Tony knows the loneliness in his voice intimately. “How about up there?”

“There are billions of people where I just came from.”

That decides it. “Then the answer for us is easy.” He doesn’t ask if they can leave their home behind, and Tony doesn’t want to bring it up. If this is the end for his earth, then this is where he wants to be.

That’s when Tony figures out what exactly the younger Tony is trying to build. It’s his turn to laugh, because it’s _always_ another weapon with him. “You don’t need to do that. I’ve got you covered.” And he pulls out the world-killer he brought especially for this moment.

The younger Tony inspects it. “That’s my design.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It’ll work?”

“Why don’t we find out?” Tony gives him a lopsided smile that his younger self returns. They have the same sense of humor.

“What’s that?” The younger one asks him, motioning at the back and gold cape still draped over Tony’s arm.

Tony is torn between telling him the truth and knowing if he began it would take too much time. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he settles for.

The other him accepts that explanation. There is clearly something larger concerning him. “Do we fix it? In the future?”

What exactly is fixed isn’t clear, but Tony’s answer is easy. “No.” In his mind he sees Steve falling to the ocean and his world exploding and teaching Nomad the hard way that he shouldn’t have ever trusted him.

The other him doesn’t need that to be explained. He waves his hands at all the makeshift bomb pieces at his feet and then at the earth above him. “But we can fix this.”

Tony nods. Finally, after all this time, there is something they can get right. He looks at the bomb he’s holding, looks back at the red sky above, and feels a sense of peace. There are billions of people living in the earth he just left.

This? This he can do.

“Ready?” his younger self asks. There is no fear in his voice, just grim determination.

Tony responds by putting his finger over the trigger, and when his counterpart doesn’t stop him, he presses the detonator.

 _At least I’m not going to die alone_ , he thinks.

Then everything fades into bright white.


	3. Earth 616 (Betrayal + 1 Day)

Tony’s head hurts. _Everything_ hurts; he may have even broken some ribs. There’s a sharp pain on his nose that makes him tear up and he sits up from where he’s laying on the workshop floor. The armor is still around him, though, and he seems to have been spared the brunt of the bomb. He brings his hand to his face and can tell his nose is broken and that the skin around his left eye is tender. His hand comes away bloody.

Great.

It’s this again.

He lifts himself off the floor and onto unsteady feet to survey what’s around him. His old Iron Man armors are standing in a perfect circle around where he lies, but besides that, he’s alone. Tony sighs and tries to wake himself up, because there is no way that he’s standing here in his armor just like he did months ago after the Time Gem briefly sent him into the future with the Avengers.

That time, he woke up alone, too.

Piecing together the puzzle, he theorizes that when he and his past self detonated the bomb, he must have been sent back the same way he had been sent back before through the Time Gem. Except this time, he’s taken the place of his younger self. The obvious crosses his mind; he should be dead. And not just now—he should have died the first time he did this, and that time with the other Cabal, and probably a dozen times in between the moment Steve remembered and when he kissed Nomad.

Then it hits him.

Steve’s still alive.

If it’s when he thinks it is, _everyone_ is alive.

A thrill of pure joy runs through Tony’s aching bones. This time it’s going to be different; he’s not going to let Steve die again. _This time,_ they are going to do this as a team. Plans start formulating in his head—plans to stop Namor and plans to stop the incursions and plans to somehow show the Avengers that he’s still with them. Then, he checks his watch to see when exactly it is so that he can begin to get it right this time and discovers it's much later than he expected, just late enough that the rush of joy leaves him as quick as it came.

He pulls out his phone and finds what he expects—a long list of voice mails left by Reed that grow increasingly panicked. He presses play.

_“Tony… where are you? I… We’re going to leave without you. Meet us at the Incursion point.”_

_“Namor detonated the bomb, he killed them, I can’t believe it, Tony where are you? We took him and are keeping him imprisoned in Necropolis. I just can’t… We did this. This is our fault.”_

_“It’s another incursion. We agreed to just let it happen. It’s been an honor knowing you.”_

That last one is from seven and a half hours ago.

Tony drops to his knees and pain radiates up his spine. This is it. This is finally it. Namor is in jail, so this time, the universe is actually going to end. There is a brief second in which Tony contemplates getting up and doing something, but he doesn’t know what that is. Thirty minutes… that’s all he has left. He pushes himself up again and feels the symbiote armor slither off his skin. His skin prickles with the feeling of old, sweaty clothes against it, and Tony finds where he keeps a few Resilient scrubs stuffed in a drawer next to a first aid kit. It doesn’t take long to wrap the bandages around himself and pull on the scrubs, and then he’s prepared.

He knows exactly what he wants to do.

And he knows exactly where he needs to be. There is a conference room Resilient uses specifically to woo big investors and top talent, and in it is a bottle of 25-year old Mackellen sitting next to a row of crystal glasses. Tony isn’t going to die sober again.

He walks through the office and ignores the people watching him along the way. It’s the end for them, too. Maybe he should announce it, let them call their family members or their friends while they have time. But he can’t bear to live with telling them, not when they only have minutes to accept it, and he walks right past them and into the conference room.

The scotch is in the exact same place it always is, the exact same place Tony’s seen it at every meeting, the exact same place he imagines it when he’s had a particularly rough day. Tony can taste it in his mouth already. It would go down, rich, smooth, a bit sweet, and with the perfect burn. He pulls out as many glasses as he can. They’re the good type, the kind that make a substantial sound on the hard wood conference table. There is no ice around, but he doesn’t care, he just pours the contents of the bottle into all the glasses in one try and doesn’t concern himself with what hits the table.

Tony raises a glass. “To losing. Again, and again, and again,” he toasts, and remembers the last time he was in this position and every regret bubbles to the surface.

_Steve whispers, “I remember,” and it’s the admission of a broken man._

_Pepper explains to him that no matter how successful his is, it won’t change what he’s done._

_Sue walks away. She has just extended her trust to him and he blew it off as if it was worth nothing, as if it wasn’t the last life line he had to his old self. She tells him the truth._

_“Oh, Tony, you don’t have friends, anymore."  
_

Tony puts the glass down.

He finds a folio full of paper in the cabinet, a pad of paper tucked neatly in the leather, and places it on the table. Tears dot the yellow legal pad, but Tony writes over the wet spots.

He writes Pepper and tells her how much he’s appreciated everything she’s done for him, that she’s an amazing person, and that he loves her. He writes Rhodey and tells him how happy he has been to have him as a friend and confidant, and that he loves him. He writes Thor and tells him how much of an honor it has been to fight at his side and that he loves him.

He writes Steve’s name at the top of another piece of paper, shaking and crying, but can’t think of what to say.

Time is ticking, and Tony has never been more aware of how little he has. He slumps to the ground and rests his back against the floor-to-ceiling window. The cold seeps in through the glass and Tony tries to focus on that.

He looks at his watch. Thirty seconds. Twenty-five. He should have taken a drink of that scotch while he had the chance. Fifteen seconds. He thinks about that kiss with Steve, even if it was the wrong version of the man. Five seconds.

At least he’s home.

The double doors slam open and Tony looks up. He laughs, because while he doesn’t believe in any of that bullshit, it makes sense that the Angel of Death carries Captain America’s shield. This Steve-mirage is magnificent, awesome, but in the way the word was used in the church services he was forced to attend as a child. In the end of the world, he’s finally been elevated from a man to the pure manifestation of God’s own righteous fury.

The mirage stomps in and Tony feels the vibrations of his footsteps on the ground. This death is unlike any other he’s experienced. It’s more cruel; it’s more deserved. “Tony!” Steve shouts as he bends over to haul Tony up by his shirt and on to his feet. Tony just responds by leaning back against the glass and letting himself sink low again. Steve grabs him by the wrist this time and lifts him up before dragging him so that he can rest against the conference table. Tony sees the moment Steve smells the scotch spilled all over the table. “Tony?” Steve asks. It’s angry, but softer. Tony flinches anyway. When he doesn’t answer, Steve leans in to close and Tony is shocked into stillness until he realizes Steve is trying to smell his breath. It’s a strange movement—equally intimate and invasive—and Tony breathes heavily from the strange thrill that’s beginning to take over.

What if this is real?

“What’s going on?” Steve asks with this hands on Tony’s shoulders and it sounds as if there’s a part of him that doesn’t really want to know. Tony grips Steve’s right wrist with his bare hand and it feels as real as anything does at the moment. It takes a few seconds, but Steve pulls his hand away and rubs it while glancing around the room. His eyes catch the letters—Tony can tell by the way they focus on the table behind him—and Steve’s breath hitches. “Were you going to—”

Steve’s phone rings.

Tony sits up straighter, confused at this latest development, and not at all convinced yet that he isn’t dead. He watches as Steve backs away to fish out the device and answer the call. It must be important, it’s programmed to be especially difficult to call.

“Captain?” Tony is close enough that Extremis picks up T’Challa’s voice.

Steve grinds his teeth and Tony wants to sink back into the carpet.

“You remember, I suspect,” T’Challa says, reading into Steve’s silence.

“Yes, I do.” Steve’s voice is another sort of violence.

“Then I can tell you that an expected incursion event that was supposed to occur four minutes ago did not. We are attempting to locate Tony.” T’Challa is as calm as a man could be who just delivered those words, which means there is still a slight quiver in his voice.

Steve looks to Tony, and then back at the mess of scotch and paper behind him. “Do you know why it didn’t happen?” he asks, getting to the heart of what needs to be done and not what he wants.

Based on the visible vein in his forehead and the way his shoulder looks tight and almost brittle, Tony assumes all Steve wants is to drop the phone and grind it slowly into the tasteful carpet with his boot.

“We are figuring that out now. I call because I need to find Tony, and some suggested that you would be the best person to ask. Is he still alive?” There’s no joke there. T’Challa is matter-of-fact on the matter.

Tony looks at Steve and wills him to keep his calm. He does, but it’s a close call. “I’m with him as we speak. He is…” Steve glances again at Tony, at the letters, at the alcohol spilled everywhere, and finishes, “…alive.”

There is silence on the other line and rustling, Tony is sure he hears voices on the other end. Tony thinks about that; he thinks about the fact that Steve eventually understands T’Challa’s unspoken request and hands over the phone. Tony’s hand shakes as he takes it from him.

“So, the incursion didn’t happen?” he asks, but he doesn’t let himself hope. Steve’s trying to read him—Tony can feel the heat of his scrutiny on his skin—and Tony tries to focus on T’Challa’s words.

It’s harder than it should be. “No, and we don’t know why. We are meeting now. I request that you join us.”

Tony nods and then realizes T’Challa can’t hear that. Steve cuts in before he has a chance to speak. “He only goes if I go.”

“Yes, of course. I’d expect nothing different,” T’Challa says. “We can’t keep this secret any longer.”

He hangs up and Tony hands over the phone, his eyes unfocused as he tries to take it all in. Steve’s still staring. His breathing is heavy and doesn’t even need his peripheral vision to know that he’s walking a wire with everything he says.

Yet, he says it anyway.

“You’re alive.” Tony looks Steve in the eye and tries to replace the image he has of Steve—old and bitter and falling to the ocean—with the man in front of him. “Really. It’s you, and you’re healthy and alive and…” Tony was going to finish that sentence with ‘whole’, but the tension in Steve’s shoulders stops him, and he finishes instead with, “you.” He wants to touch him some more, feel the way he has mass and density and takes up actual space; he raises his hands to do just that, but Steve steps out of his reach and Tony’s arms fall to his sides.

A minute passes, then another, and Steve’s still quiet. He’s evaluating strategies, Tony knows that look. His mouth opens and closes a few times, and then he turns on his heel and stomps out the door. Tony is sure he’s expected to follow.

He calls up the armor and it reaches him as he turns a corner on the hallway while he quickly tries to catch up to Steve. His sore muscles don’t like the effort, but he pushes on anyway and he’s entirely encased in the symbiote by the time he’s in line with Steve.

“New armor.” Steve observes. He doesn’t ask for more information, he doesn’t even turn to look at Tony. “You can teleport, right?”

“For these sorts of situations, yes.”

Steve stops walking and finally turns to him. “Then what are we waiting for?” Without asking he steps forward so that he’s facing away from Tony now, and wraps his arm around Tony’s torso. It’s weird how quickly they fall into the normal routine, how quickly Steve trusts him enough for even this small thing. It’s nothing like the way they used to do this, but Steve’s alive and next to him and Tony doesn’t let that get in the way of appreciating those facts.

He lifts his hand, presses the spot he knows contains the incursion warning device, and tightens his grip around Steve. It’s to protect against the force of teleportation. Nothing more.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The second they materialize in Necropolis, Steve steps away from Tony like he burns him. Having been holding each other tight, the loss changes Tony’s center of gravity and he stumbles back and almost into Hank. With strong, blue hands, Hank steadies him.

“New armor?” Reed asks, not at all astonished. He’s been privy to a lot of Tony’s ramblings on the usefulness of organic armor. “You finally got the symbiote to behave?”

Tony knows Steve is staring at him, he doesn’t have to turn around to confirm it.

“It’s a long story,” Tony explains by way of non-explanation. Before, it took him a couple more months to really begin using the silver armor regularly.

Steve sighs—maybe annoyed, maybe exhausted—and says, “and you’re going to tell us as soon as we deal with the problem at hand. Can someone please explain to me what just happened and why we aren’t all dead?” The surprise of Steve suppressing whatever admonishment he clearly would prefer to say gets Tony to finally turn enough to see him. Every muscle in Steve’s body is tensed, and while physically he looks taller, something about the set of his jaw makes him seem like the smallest man in the room. There’s brittleness in how he’s carrying himself, and Tony is distinctly aware of how close Steve is to breaking and how disastrous that would be to their goals.

Black Bolt shrugs, a gesture that Hank verbally translates as, “We don’t know.”

Steve takes a step forward towards the group. “What do you mean, you don’t know? How is it that I’m standing in a room with most of the smartest people alive, and you _don’t know_?” He’s loud, his posture is pure aggression, and Tony instinctively reaches out his hand to rest on Steve’s shoulder. It’s inches away when Steve turns to look at him and Tony immediately drops his hand.

“We are trying all that we can to figure this out—”

“I know!” Tony exclaims as soon as he remembers when exactly they are. “Oh, at least, I remember how it happened last time.”

The whole group looks at Tony. “Last time?” Reed asks for all of them.

“Yes, the last time it was Namor and the rest of—”

“Huh?”

“Namor is in a glass cell downstairs,” T’Challa explains.

“Last time?”

Tony takes a deep breath and powers through. “Last time, he brought together Thanos and Black Swan and—”

“That’s impossible…”

“What do you mean _last time_?” Steve shouts and the rest of the room goes quiet.

“Your armor, it’s from the future. Right?” Reed asks, having made a connection the rest of the room missed.

“Yes.”

Steve shifts his weight around, Tony can feel the way it changes the tension between them, but he remains silent.

T’Challa looks from Steve to Tony, and carefully asks, “Because _you’re_ from the future.”

“Yes.”

Hank pulls out his glasses and makes an extended effort at wiping them clean. “How?”

“I told you, it’s a long story.”

“Is it relevant to the incursions?” Stephen asks.

“Yes.”

“Then I think we need to hear it,” Steve says, and his voice is just a touch enough tender to not be a growl. Tony almost wants to ignore his command and see if Steve keeps using that tone.

Instead, he shakes his head. He thinks about the crystal glasses he left behind in Stark Tower and all the scotch he wasted.

It takes a lot of effort to not just ask T’Challa, then and there, for whatever he has nearby.

“In the future, there is an incursion,” he begins, but carefully chooses his words. “And I went to stop it. It… didn’t work. I was captured by a group made up of Ultron, Hyperion, and Reed and our earth was destroyed.” Everyone nods like this is an entirely understandable scenario and Reed, especially, shows no sign of being affected. “Turns out, that earth was a little behind. I mean, _a lot_ behind. I was broken out by their Steve, who was calling himself Nomad.” That surprises everyone listening, except Steve, who just lets out a long breath.

“You fought with them?” Steve asks.

Tony almost says _of course_ , but that’s not true. “Eventually, yes. And there was another incursion,” Tony keeps on explaining, stripping the story down to its bare bones and avoiding the whys and hows of the situation. “We went to go stop it—me and the Avengers—and it turned out the world we were colliding with was ours.”

Black Bolt points to the ground, clarifying Tony means the one they are all stranding on.

Hank asks, “But you said ours was… destroyed.”

“It was. And even weirder, this time it was the future… and only one person was alive… and…” Tony stops and looks at Steve. “When you went back through the time gem, was everything white?”

Steve nods and his face is blank behind the mask.

“I think I encountered an earth stuck in the Time Gem. And in it was… me. _Only_ me.” It’s crazy, Tony knows this, but crazier things have happened to them and he doesn’t have time to dwell on the insanity of it all. “When the two of us chose to destroy our earth because nobody else was on it, I must have been sent back, just like I was before.”

Steve doesn’t nod this time. “So, you killed yourself.” It’s not a question, Steve clearly doesn’t want a response. What he wants instead remains undefined, but the concern in his eyes doesn’t go unnoticed by Tony.

At some point Tony can’t particularly remember, Steve crossed a line and changed from the man Tony remembers of Earth-440519. Yet, Tony thinks about Nomad and how the sheer weight of the world had been slowly building on his shoulders. “No. We saved them.” It feels important to emphasize that there’s an entire team of Avengers trying to stop the multiversal collapse because of what he did. He hopes Steve understands that.

“That doesn’t make any sense, though,” Hank says, clearly not interested in the whatever battle of wills Steve and Tony are currently in the middle of.

“Of course, it does,” Stephen butts in to say. “Time isn’t fixed. It’s moving, all around us, always.”

“Think of it like a pool full of beach balls…” Reed begins to explain, and his eyes are beginning to shine like he’s on the cusp of a major break through. “The beach balls are the universes, the water is time, so…”

T’Challa gasps, finally understanding what Tony’s been trying to wrap his head around, and says, “Depending on the time in between, a universe exists or it doesn’t.”

“Or like a pool table, and the green felt is time,” Tony exclaims, and he remembers Val’s sketch and Reed’s notes, all of it finally falling into place.

“Yes. It’s chaos, the way these incursions are happening.” Reed’s talking faster than normal, and his excitement is beginning to brighten the room.

Black Bolt only nods, following along.

“Except…” Tony also remembers sitting in the workshop on Earth-440519 and looking at his counterpart’s model. “It’s not random. Not completely, anyway. There are probabilities and chances and—”

“Probabilities?” Steve’s eyebrow furrows and Tony can see him thinking.

Stephen answers, “Yes, Captain.” He probably isn’t trying to sound condescending, but that’s what comes through. “That means there are—

Steve grits his teeth and Tony can feel him holding back. “Chaos?” he asks and turns to Tony.

And that’s when Tony understands that Steve’s questions are beginning to form into a strategy.

“Wanda,” Tony whispers so quiet even he barely hears it, but he can see how his comprehension registers on Steve’s face.

Steve doesn’t smile but the tension he’s been holding floats away and suddenly his presence feels a foot taller. “Turns out we have an Avenger whose entire skill set is chaos and probabilities,” Steve says, his eyes never leaving Tony’s, but Tony knows Steve isn’t trying to explain it to him. They’re on the same wavelength now. “This is officially an Avengers problem.”

The room looks to him and Tony can see all them slowly begin to reach Steve’s conclusion.

“It won’t stop them,” T’Challa observes.

“No, it won’t. But it might buy us some time, and isn’t that what we need?” Steve asks and the feeling that’s welling up in Tony’s chest might be his favorite. It’s better than alcohol, it’s better than money, it’s better than that moment he invents something so perfect it will change the world forever.

It’s better because they’re a team and they have a plan. It’s better because finally, they’re Avengers again.

“Now we have a saying, _once an Avenger_ ,” Steve doesn’t finish the thought, he doesn’t have to. His confidence no longer feels defensive. Tony is standing next to a man in his element. “All of you are welcome on the team and most of you have served side by side with us. I know you have done your part as heroes. We are going to need bright people, the type of people who can solve problems, the type of people who can lead. So, you can join us, or you can get out of our way.”

The room stands there, five men stupefied, and Tony doesn’t know what exactly to say. He can’t tell if Steve is looking at him as if he trusts him because this is what forgiveness looks like, or because Steve sees a strategy that involves Tony. Steve gives them just enough time so that their silence becomes awkward before he says, “Well, tell me if you plan on helping us,” and walks out of the room. Tony stands there with his feet glued to the floor and is shocked when he hears Steve’s voice out in the hallway. “Us means you, too, Tony.”

With a skip, he follows and catches up to where Steve is walking. “You sure about this?” Tony asks.

Steve takes a few more silent steps before he stops. He’s closer to the old man Tony saw fall into the ocean than the young one he kissed just half a day ago. Yet, compared to just an hour ago, there’s a lightness and ease about him Tony grew used to the idea of never seeing again. For Steve, there is a path forward he didn’t have yesterday, and maybe that’s all he needs. “No,” Steve confesses. “But it’s something, and we have to try, right?”

That vulnerability catches Tony off guard, and he tries to remember that for Steve, it’s only been days since he found out about the incursions, whereas for Tony it’s been months. He hasn’t had time to grow cynical. “Yes. We do.”

For a long time, Steve stares at him and Tony can see the way his eyes catch on Tony’s broken nose and the bruise under his eye. He has the slightest squint Tony has learned to interpret as he wants to say something but has already decided not to. “Do we fix it?” Steve asks instead and looks down the hallway. Maybe he means the incursions. Maybe he means their relationship. Tony doesn’t know.

“No. You lose the serum and become a bitter and angry old man hellbent on destroying me. And I become a guiltless hedonist, drinking everyone’s trust away.”

Steve’s quiet and Tony can see a different kind of contemplation on his features. He’s not outlining strategies in his mind; it’s something else. “Okay. At least this time, we know what _not_ do,” he says.

Tony wants to smile, maybe even crack a joke, but Steve still looks severe and caught in his own thoughts. Tony still knows what to say. “Time to get to work.”

Steve does smile at that, just a little, and Tony takes his small victory.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It takes seconds to be back at the tower and right to the task at hand. As soon as Steve’s feet are solid on the ground, he calls the Avengers to the main living room. It turns out that many of them had already been assembled and Tony knows Steve had called them in, just hours before, to take him down. The rest of them are also arriving—not just the core team Steve and Tony put together, but the Unity Squad and the Mighty Avengers, too.

Steve clears his throat and everyone looks to him. “All of us have been made aware in the last twenty-four hours that the multiverse is collapsing and I want to make it clear that no matter what else is happening, or will happen, that is our priority. I need everyone in this room willing to work as a team. Do you understand?”

Some only do it reluctantly, but everyone nods.

“Wanda, can I speak with you?” Steve nods to the corner and makes eye contact with Tony so Tony knows he’s supposed to join them.

“What can I do?” Wanda asks, understanding she’s needed by the way she’s been summoned.

“I’m not sure how exactly this is going to work… but according to the experts—” Steve says _experts_ with a small amount of disdain, “—the universal collisions are chaotic, but also…”

“There are ‘odds’ they can happen, how they happen, and how many people will be affected,” Tony supplies, supposing he’s one of Steve’s ‘experts’.

Wanda looks at them like they are crazy. “Are you asking me to stop them?”

“No, I’m asking you to help us make them less often and dangerous.” There is a moment Steve’s facade cracks and he sighs, as if he knows that what he’s asking for is too much, but it’s gone as soon as it appears, and Steve is once again everyone’s fearless leader.

“I’m going to need help…” Wanda says and sets her shoulders. “Lots of help. This sort of magic… it’s too big for me.”

Tony smiles because he can see the moment Wanda decides she at least wants to try. “But?” he asks, knowing she has something to say.

“I’m not saying I can do it, but I think if Stephen and maybe Jericho and others could assist me and help me amplify my magic... I don't know.” Tony nods. He knows that even if he left the Illuminati unsure about their position with Steve, they will come through to help. Maybe everyone will.

Tension flows out of Steve’s shoulders. “All I can ask is that you try. We’ll be looking into other alternatives, too. It’s not all on you.”

Wanda laughs. “I get it. No pressure to save the universe and all that.”

“Time to get to work, Avenger.”

And Wanda does get to work. Soon, she’s joined by a group of magic users, some Tony doesn’t even remember, and they’re lost in whatever space they go to when they have to save the world. It’s been twelve hours, and Steve is growing more and more restless as team member after team member throws out idea after idea. Eventually they are joined by the rest of the Illuminati, who alert them that Namor, Thanos, and Black Swan have broken out of the Necropolis prison and were possibly responsible for the incursion that didn’t happen this morning.

Tony is once again concerned that Steve is going to lose it then and there, so he reaches out and tries to gently touch his elbow. Steve looks down, but he doesn’t shake Tony off, and turns to the rest of the group. He announces, “Who wants to hit something?” Three-fourths of the group raise their hands, but Steve points to Jen, Carol, Jess, and Clint. “I need the four of you to search down Namor. Only engage if he’s alone. If not, you tell me, and we’ll get you back up.”

The room goes still and it takes Tony a few seconds to realize a light is flashing in his palm. He sees the rest of the Illuminati doing the same thing and the buoyant mood he’s been trying to ride out crashes. Steve looks at him, needing confirmation, and Tony nods back and hopes the rest of the room doesn’t see all the doubt on Steve’s face. They need to believe in something at the end of the world and it’s Tony’s job to make sure that happens.

“I need all the information you can give me,” Steve commands. “Everything about this earth. How many people, what’s their technology like, and what are their intentions. _Everything_.”

The scientists in the room either stand up and being to walk to their respective labs or pull out tablets and begin typing furiously. Tony’s still walking around in the silver symbiote suit, though, so he uses Extremis to pull up a large holographic screen. On it are the same sensors he was looking at before, during his time on Earth-440519, but now their interfaces are more crisp and self-explanatory. There’s everything—including things like the location of the incursion point, detailed reports of soil composition across the planet, and demographic breakdowns and cultural analysis.

Except Tony’s seeing none of that last one.

He looks up at Steve through the transparent hologram and Steve looks back. Tony can tell he’s expecting bad news, but Tony doesn’t say anything to confirm his suspicion beside giving an involuntary smile before looking back too confirm. That’s important to Tony; he needs to make sure that he knows everything before getting his hopes up. Earth-2906 is made entirely of some sort of ultra-hard and reflective rock that couldn’t possibly support life. And everything Tony is seeing supports that.

“What is it?” Steve asks and walks up so that only the hologram screen is between them. There’s hope in his voice Tony desperately wants to encourage, but he stays silent.

“Reed,” he uses Extremis to say, knowing it will find some way to Reed’s ears. “Grab Bruce and T’Challa, I need your second opinion.”

They haven’t gone far, just the other room, and Reed bounds in like he’s reached the same conclusion Tony has—he’s running, clearly needing someone to confirm whatever he’s seen. “I’m not seeing any lifeforms…” he says, not looking up fro the tablet he’s holding.

That grabs Steve’s attention. “None?” Tony tries to focus on the statistics and other information that’s popping up in front of him, and not through it to see Steve’s face light up and the stress of everything fall off him.

“This earth is mostly solid, except for some hollow space in the middle,” Bruce begins, before looking down and double checking something. “I’ve done a brief scan of different radiation levels, and while I can’t be sure, there isn’t a sign of anyone being present.”

“We can’t be positive, but if there _are_ people, they’re under miles of rock,” T’Challa explains. “And that hollow space in the middle is too small to support a civilization.”

Steve looks between all of them, like he expects one of them to break out laughing and tell him they’re kidding. “Are you saying that no one lives there?”

“Nothing lives there. Not a single breathing thing,” Tony rushes to say because he wants to be the person that makes it just a little better for Steve.

It’s an impulse he’s failed to fix, and he knows that’s dangerous. But Tony’s been apart of at least four near death experiences this week and it has taken its toll.

Of course, that can’t last. Bruce is frantically typing and doesn’t stop to say, “Now, there are some complications…”

“Complications?” There goes Steve’s good mood.

“This rock the earth is made of… it’s too hard. I’m not sure a surface detonation would lead to complete annihilation. Now, I’m not the expert,” the four of them look to Tony, “But I think we’re going to need to get inside if we want to guarantee the entire planet’s destruction.”

“How are we going to get inside?”

“There are ways…” Reed trails off and Tony is beginning to hear what he isn’t saying. “We can teleport a bomb into the center, but the energy this rock is giving off… I’m not sure it would allow us to get back.”

Steve sees the problem right away. “That bomb’s not going alone.”

“No, it’s not. And we need to send someone who can troubleshoot any problems that occur. Someone who had firsthand knowledge of the bombs,” Tony says it fast, loud, and defiant, because he knows what’s going to happen and he wants to make it clear it was his idea first.

“Tony—” Steve starts and then looks around to the others nearby, clearly sure that now someone is going to tell them it’s all a big joke. “You can’t do that.”

“Yes, I can. This thing here? Saving the universe with a worldkiller bomb? This I can do.” The rest of the common room is falling away. Now, it’s only Steve and Tony, and this continuous battle of what they can afford to sacrifice for the greater cause.

Steve looks like he’s going to argue, possibly even punch him again.

But instead, he’s silent.

Reed breaks the tension. “We should do this as soon as possible. Just in case it doesn’t work.”

Steve nods and Tony can see the moment he’s decides this is the best plan of action. Something about that acceptance hurts and makes Tony want to curl into a ball and find a way out, but Tony’s will wins, and he sets his shoulders. He hopes that’s what Steve sees, at least. This is their best option.

Steve finally breaks their stare-down and looks to Reed. “How long will it take you to set it up?”

Bruce looks apologetic. “Ten, fifteen minutes?”

“Okay,” Steve says, and he walks away.

“We’ll need to get you to the Baxter building,” Reed’s already dragging him along. He’s clearly passed the line into grim determination.

Tony lets himself be pulled and uses the rest of his energy to run through scenarios. He thinks about all the ways this plan could go wrong, and everything he would need if he would have to do to reconfigure a worldkiller while in the middle of a planet. It helps him from wondering if there is anything he should be doing with these last fifteen minutes.

At least he wrote those letters…

Before they leave the room, he looks over his shoulder to see Steve talking with Thor and Sam, clearly having moved onto the next problem. Tony tries to savor it, even if it’s not the last few minutes he would have asked for. At this point, he’s had worse.

It feels like all Tony does is blink and he’s arrived in Reed’s lab. Reed and Bruce are shouting something at each other, and somewhere Hank hasn’t looked up from his tablet. It’s always amazing how quickly things like this can come together and Tony tries to focus on that and how the knowledge that he’s surrounded by brilliant people makes everything a little easier. Tony, for is part, is checking over the bomb and looking to see if there is any chance it’s defective in addition to picking up tools as he can find them in case he has to fix it on the fly.

No one talks to him, and Tony is glad for that. He’s not sure what any of them would have to say to each other. Tony and the Illuminati had disastrously parted ways once Tony had chosen to remain inverted, but watching them now, he knows this is the better end.

He thinks about that—how many ends he’s had to live through. It’s just one more, he tells himself, and that’s a comfort.

Reed joins Tony next to where he’s fiddling with the worldkiller, and says, “We should set it on a timer. To give us a chance to get you home.”

“Do you actually think I’m coming home from this?” Tony scoffs.

Reed shakes his head. “No… but I want to try. I promise to get you as close to the center as I can.”

The portal is already being opened in the corner of the lab and Tony sure he’s imagining it, but the room’s temperature rises by a couple degrees. “Are you ready?” Bruce asks once the last few things have slotted into place. 

Tony lets the way he walks towards the portal be his answer. He’s been ready since he’d been placed in that cell. There is rustling behind him, but he tries not to focus on it. He trusts these people—this is what they do.

Once he’s inches away, Hank shouts, “Tony!” and Tony turns to look. The faces of his friends don’t offer any solace and he has nothing to tell them that will make them feel better. He opens his mouth anyway, ready to try and say something, but the door opens and T’Challa and Steve step through.

Steve surveys everything in the lab and after he spots the portal, he asks Reed, “Is that it? Is that what he has to go through?” Reed nods, and Steve turns to stare at Tony. After that, no one else in the room really matters.

Tony wants to shout something at Steve, though he’s not entirely sure what he will say if he does. Instead, he stays quiet and decides not to make it last too long. He takes one step back towards to the portal and notices how everyone else in the room, except Steve, stops breathing. Steve is staring straight ahead like this is just another Tuesday. That makes it easier to move the last couple of inches and fall back into the portal.

He’s in the middle of a tight tunnel surrounded entirely by some black stone that reflects the light from the RT node in his chest and shines like glitter all around him. The portal’s still behind him, but Tony doesn’t wait for it to close to begin walking towards where Extremis tells him the center of this earth is.

It’s hot, even through the armor Tony can feel it, and Tony knows he’ll be sweating soon. They weren’t prepared for this. It makes him angry that he can’t detonate the thing early.

“Tony!”

Tony freezes. _No, no, no, no, no,_ he thinks.

It doesn’t matter, because Steve puts a hand on his shoulder and urges him to turn around.

There is no portal behind him, anymore.

“Why?” Tony asks. He’s shaking, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He can feel the anger rising somewhere deep inside, he knows the suit is glowing red, he can see the way the glittery stone around them changes. “Why do you always have to be like this?!” He yells, and it echoes around the cavern. “Why can’t you, for once, just…”

“Just what?” Steve’s angry, too.

“Just… leave me alone.” It’s not what Tony means. What he really wants is for Steve to always be there, but not with that look on his face. Not like he’s seconds away from putting his shield into Tony’s skull. “Wait…” he finally notices Steve’s missing something. “Where’s the shield?”

Steve shrugs and he looks like Tony asked him where he misplaced his keys. “I left it behind. Someone’s going to need it.”

Tony gets it, right then. It finally falls into place that Steve’s here to die, too. “Why?” he asks again.

“I couldn’t let you do this alone.” The way Steve says it, it sounds like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Yes, you could. All you had to do is just stay on that—” Tony points behind Steve “—side of the portal!”

Steve begins to run his fingertips against the stone. The shadows of his body blocking the light coming from Tony’s suit rapidly changes against the shimmering background. “But, I didn’t.”

 _No, you didn’t. Because that would be too easy_ , Tony thinks. “Steve,” he pleads, though he’s not sure for what, “They need you. Everyone back there needs you to lead them.”

Steve chuckles at some joke Tony didn't say. “They’ll be fine.”

“NO! They won’t. They’re _terrified_ and you’re supposed to be the one who makes it better. You’re supposed to be the one they rally around. They need you.” The last point bears repeating.

That seems to do the trick. Steve looks away from where he’s studying the rock around them. A bead of sweat is running down his temple and he looks… defeated. Done. Like he’s made a decision he’s never going to back away from. “But you don’t need me,” he whispers, and it feels like the few steps between them are a canyon of mistakes and secrets.

“Need?” Tony’s voice squeaks. He’s shaking. He supposes he’s defeated, too. “Steve, I need you more than I need the armor or the Avengers or… air.” He takes a deep breath. “I could figure out how to replace air, but I could never replace you. Trust me, _I tried_.”

Steve looks down at the bomb Tony is holding. “Then why did you do it? Why did you betray me?”

“Because I _needed_ you happy and alive and doing what the Avengers should be doing, and you can’t do that if you aren’t fighting for what you believe in. I _needed_ you to have the team ready for what came after you found out, not falling apart at the seams with the rest of the Illuminati.” Steve scoffs, but Tony continues now that’s he’s forgotten how to keep all of this a secret. “I need… to sit across from you when I drink coffee in the morning and to stand next to you when you scream ‘Avengers assemble!’” He pauses to think about how unbearably angry it made him that Steve never showed up in San Francisco to confront him, and he adds as an afterthought, “I need to see your face _at least_ once a day.” Tony’s quiet, the words barely making their way from his thoughts and out of his mouth. He’s not sure Steve hears him, but he says, “Anyway, everyone you just left behind needs you, too. It doesn’t matter what I need.”

Tony waits for Steve to say something, but Steve just takes a step forward. He’s squinting at Tony and maybe preparing to hit him. That may hurt less than anything he’s going to verbalize. “It’s matters, Tony” he says and takes another step. Tony holds his ground and doesn’t step back an inch, even when Steve gets so close he wouldn’t be able to throw a good punch.

Steve kisses him. He wraps a hand around Tony’s armored neck and kisses him.

“You have no idea how much it matters,” he mumbles against Tony’s lips.

Tony kisses back.

It takes only a few steps until Steve’s backed into the stone and Tony’s armored chest is flush against his. Steve’s hand moves from Tony’s neck and grabs Tony’s hair, and his soft, now wet, lips part. Tony nips at the bottom one and runs his fingertips of his free hand against all the technical material that makes up Steve’s uniform. He wants to remove every layer between them and climb into Steve’s body so that he’s entirely engulfed and every mistake falls away. He wants every inch of good in Steve’s soul to negate every inch of bad in his.

But there is a worldkiller bomb cradled in one arm, and they have a job to do.

Tony pushes himself away from Steve and puts his focus on a part of the glittering stone just above Steve’s left shoulder. “We should get to work,” he says, and begins walking down the cavern closer to the center of the planet.

Steve reaches out and grabs his hand, stopping him mid-step, and tells him, “I meant it.”

Tony doesn’t need to be told what exactly Steve is talking about. “I know.” That earns him Steve’s sad smile. “But it’s not like that, in the future. We’re not like that.”

Steve’s footsteps echo off the ground as he walks closer to Tony. For a moment, Tony’s sure Steve’s going to kiss him again, but instead he keeps on walking forward and away, already set on the task at hand. “Then tell me what I’m going to miss.” The way he says it, Tony’s pretty sure Steve isn’t interested in the future he’s never going to have.

But Tony walks with Steve and does tell him; he makes sure that Steve knows it’s Sam who takes the title of 'Captain America' and that seems to be good enough news that Steve smiles, big, wide, and happy this time. The smile slowly breaks when Tony explains about Ian and the Red Onslaught and SHIELD, but Tony keeps at it until Steve stops him.

“Why?” he asks. “I don’t understand how you let yourself become that.”

“It’s easy, really.” Tony looks at Steve and tries to find something he hasn’t already memorized about him. The light from Tony’s armor casts shadows on Steve’s skin and reflects strangely on his perspiring face. It makes him seem other-worldly, almost like a ghost. “There were things I needed to do. Things that you can’t do when you can’t look yourself in the mirror. See…” Tony isn’t sure how to put it. “I have this problem. I care, and all it has done is poison everything around me. It turns out I was reaching the end of my own abilities. When I was inverted, I realized there was so much I could do and so much more I couldn’t feel.”

Steve’s silent and the only thing Tony can hear is their footprints. Steve’s are soft—his boots were built for maximum maneuverability—but Tony’s clatter against the rock. It’s almost uncomfortable to listen to, but that’s what Tony tries to focus on. That, and just how fucking hot it is.

Which is why he’s surprised when Steve lifts off the upper part of his uniform and drops it to the ground without warning.

And then he follows by pulling off his boots in a strange hop that keeps him moving forward. His pants go next—he has to stop for a second to kick them off, but he never loses his forward momentum, never stops going towards to heart of the planet, even if the effort leaves him naked except for a pair of tight briefs Tony’s designed particularly for the needs of men who tend to be stuck in the same uniform for days on end while also engaging in physical combat.

On Steve’s sweat soaked body, they’re the only thing that’s still dry.

Tony tries to look away, he really does, but his inhibitions went out the window the moment he was inverted, and unlike the easy, guiltless feeling, they seem to be gone for good. It doesn’t help the situation that Steve could almost have just stumbled out of a male strip club; the sweat runs down his muscles and looks almost like oil in the strange lighting.

Steve smiles—but it isn’t mischievous, it isn’t clear he knows what’s going on in Tony’s head—and shrugs. “No point letting myself overheat, right?”

“Yeah. Right,” Tony responds as he tries to regain higher thought. He looks down at the armor covering his skin and protecting him from the worst of the heat. “Exactly.”

“It’s really beautiful down here,” Steve observes after a little while.

Tony is about to say something corny, like ‘the view is excellent’, but he’s notified by the HUD that they’ve reached their destination. There is nothing about this portion of the tunnel that seems to indicate that they are in the most effective spot to cause maximum damage, but Tony stops anyway and lays the bomb on the floor. He gets to his knees to check that everything looks like it’s supposed to.

“Is it going to work?” Steve asks.

“There is only one way to find out. It’s been an hour and fifteen minutes since we arrived.” Reed timed it perfectly, of course. Just enough time would be left for Tony to engineer some way to fix it if the bomb didn’t work as intended.

“So, we wait.”

“So, we wait,” Tony parrots back. He looks up at where Steve is towering above him, every sculpted muscle shining in the light of the RT node and he feels himself subconsciously bite his lip. “What should we do with the time?”

This time, Steve’s smile _is_ mischievous and he holds out a hand to help Tony lift himself off his knees. “I don’t know. End of the world and almost forty-five minutes till certain death? I guess I can think of a few things.”

Tony laughs because if this is the end, if this is how he has to die, then it’s better than all of his almost-deaths before. He puts both of his hands on Steve shoulders and walks him back into the wall behind him and away from the bomb. The sight of his silver armored gauntlets against Steve’s bare skin is especially inspiring. Steve’s eyes grow large, and they quickly flick to the worldkiller behind them and then back on Tony’s face. “Okay,” he says, his voice hoarse and dry, and it’s the answer to an unspoken question.

For just a moment Tony has to fight back the impulse to ask Steve to explain himself. He wants a long and detailed description of everything that is going on behind those blue eyes and in that heaving chest. Maybe with those answers he’d know what this means, but there’s no way to verbalize that.

Because it’s the best option he has, Tony tells the armor to slither away and leave him exposed. It follows orders, clearly no longer worried bout Tony’s health, and reforms a few feet away. The heat instantly hits his skin and he begins to perspire immediately, as if he had just stepped into an incredibly hot sauna.

It’s so hot that the air can barely get in his lungs.

And then Steve leans forward and kisses him and Tony can’t care less if he’s breathing.

Steve’s lips are soft, pliant, and oh so perfect against Tony’s own. The feeling of them—the way they part just right, the way Tony can’t help but run his tongue against the bottom one—makes him light headed and he moans like this is the first time he’s ever made out with anyone.

“I think I should tell you,” he parts just enough to feel Steve’s breath against his skin to say. “This isn’t my first time.”

Steve laughs, Tony knows because abdominal muscles tighten when he does it, and he smiles against his lips. “I kinda figured that out.”

Tony shakes his head and his nose bumps against Steve’s. “No, I mean not the first time _with you_.”

“But you said in the future…”

Tony laughs this time. “No, back in the other uni—”

Steve cuts him off with a light kiss, just enough to stop his train of thought. “Can we postpone this conversation?” He runs his hand through Tony’s hair and uses the other to outline the bare skin between Tony’s shirt and pants.

“To when?” It’s a joke. Instead of laughing, Tony takes another step forward so that there isn’t anything but the cotton of his shirt between them; Steve must notice that because it takes ten seconds to remove it. The warmth of Steve’s skin is probably the only feeling Tony can tolerate, and he leans into it as much as he can. He uses his hands to trace every ridge of Steve’s body, running his fingers against the dips in his muscles and the way his hip and collar bones just out perfectly.

All of it—the heat, Steve’s hard cock against his thigh, the way he uses both of his hands to grab Tony’s ass and pull him closer, those sounds vibrating in his throat—make all the doubt fall away and Tony is sure there is something here he’s missing, but there isn’t any time to figure it out. No, there’s only this. The doubts and fears and years of needing and wishing don’t matter anymore.

“What do you want?” Steve mumbles as he slides his finger tips under both the waistbands of Tony’s pants and his boxers.

Tony watches Steve’s face, trying to decipher what Steve wants, because at the moment what Tony wants is _everything_. The light from the RT washes Steve in a strange pink glow and catches the beads of sweat running down his chest.

Steve’s face scrunches up—it looks almost demonic, being lit from below—and he runs the pad of his thumb below Tony’s right eye. “Are you okay?” Steve asks.

Tony’s chest is heaving as he gasps for air, his heart is racing, and his dick is rock hard, so he responds, “why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“You’re eyes…”

“Oh.” Tony remember this quite well. “That happens, now.” _When I feel things, apparently_ , he adds in his head.

Steve takes another few seconds to think it over, but he must decide he doesn’t care or there isn’t time, because he moves his hand in between them and gives Tony’s dick a few quick tugs. Tony groans into Steve’s bare shoulder and winds his hands into Steve’s hair. “You didn’t answer my question,” Steve whispers into his ear without stilling his hand. “What do you want?”

“I want you to fuck me.” He moves his left hand from Steve’s damp hair and slowly traces the firm dip of Steve’s spine with his fingernails. It’s not enough to scratch—Tony does too much with his hands to have long nails, but Steve hisses anyway. “I want to feel you so deep inside there might as well be nothing but your cock left on this earth.”

“I’m not sure that’s going to be possible,” Steve says and kisses Tony’s temple in a tender gesture meant to sooth him.

Tony tilts his head just enough to capture Steve’s lips and he encourages Steve to remove his briefs. “Everything’s possible.” He holds out his hand and the empty armor hands him a packet of lube he always kept just in case. Steve’s surprised, he’s staring, but instead of asking for an explanation (where could Tony begin?) he flips Tony around so that’s he’s now the one pushed against the rough rock. It scratches his back. “Fuck,” but it’s not the pain that makes him curse. He’s wide-eyed and breathing heavy and he can’t stop watching the way Steve’s looking at him. The expression on his face is pure focus and heat and Tony feels blessed to be the source of it.

He pulls down and kicks off his boxers, then rips the packet between his fingers and squirts just enough that he can use a finger to push against the tight ring of his asshole. “Yeah, just like that…” Steve mumbles under his breath before licking at Tony’s neck and wrapping a hand around both of their cocks. Steve moans at the sensation and Tony follows through and pushes his finger as far as it would go. He pushes his head back against the stone and loses himself in the sensation of Steve’s cock against his own and his finger in his ass and the way the rock feels on his skin.

It doesn’t take long to feel ready for another—Tony's had a lot of practice in last few months—but the next one feels better. It makes him pant. He needs cool air and water and Steve’s hand to move faster. He knows where to find the exact place in himself that sends shock waves through his body and he shamelessly lets out a throaty moan when he presses right there.

Steve’s free hand grips his chin in a silent request for Tony to open his eyes and look at him.

Tony does (how could he not?) and Steve’s biting his own lip as he uses his thumb to trace Tony’s. “You’re so beautiful,” Steve whispers, but somehow it’s still loud enough to echo throughout the cave.

Tony laughs, because he does actually know that, but he can’t think of a reply because Steve moves both hands to Tony’s hips and uses them as support so he can kneel on the glittering ground. Tony nods in assent to the silent question in Steve’s eyes and uses his free hand to stoke Steve’s cheek.

Steve grips the hand Tony’s using to open himself up and slowly pulls it away. The packet Tony dropped isn’t far, and Steve picks it up, squirts some of it on his fingers, and uses two to tease Tony’s rim before slipping them in.

“Another,” Tony begs and maybe it’s too soon, but there is a clock ticking in the back of Tony’s mind and he doesn’t care how much longer they have, only that he gets to feel all of it before they’re gone. “Please.”

Without a second of debate, Steve obeys and slips a third right next to the other two. Tony was right—it is too much—but it’s everything he’s ever wanted to feel. He doesn’t see Steve guide his cock into his mouth, but he feels the coolness of Steve’s soft tongue against his dick and somehow, he’s shivering despite the heat. “Yes,” he moans and draws out the ‘s’ as Steve takes him further and further. Steve chooses at that moment to arch his fingers and find Tony’s prostate, an accomplishment which compels Tony to buck further into Steve’s mouth.

All of it is making Tony lightheaded; if it’s the heat or the Steve’s fingers or his mouth or some wonderful mixture of the three, Tony can’t be sure. He captures Steve’s wrist and pulls his fingers away from where they’re deep inside him, and then carefully pushes Steve’s shoulder so he stops that glorious sucking motion he’s clearly an expert in. “Ready?” Steve asks and pushes himself up and off the ground while Tony nods and feel somewhat delirious. “How do you want—”

“I want to see you,” Tony says immediately.

Something about that makes Steve smile. Steve splays both hands around Tony’s ass, pushing it off the store wall, and then lifts him up so that his feet no longer touch the ground. Tony uses the one hand that isn’t wrapped around the back of Steve’s neck and keeping him steady to grip Steve’s cock and guide it towards his entrance. It takes a few tries to get it right, but once the tip of his cock passes Tony’s rim, all they need now is gravity.

Steve slowly drops his arms until Tony is fully seated, with only Steve’s hands, his legs around Steve’s torso, and the rock behind him keeping him up right. “So good… You feel so good, Tony.” They’re so close Tony’s not all the confident where his skin ends and Steve’s begins except he knows those are Steve’s teeth nibbling against his collarbone.

Tony arches his back so that he can feel some movement inside him and Steve grunts something inaudible. Tony just does it again. “You like that?” Tony asks and Steve responds by lifting him up on his cock before dropping him a few inches. Tony screams, “fuck,” and maybe they should have used more lube, but he doesn’t have to worry about waking up sore tomorrow. “Just like that,” he begs incoherently. “Don’t stop.”

And Steve doesn’t.

Tony braces his arms—one on Steve’s shoulders and another against the wall—and tries to time his hip thrusts with Steve’s movements. Steve’s cock slams into his prostate when he finally gets it right. Steve’s muttering something into the skin of his neck and the breath is a nice contrast to the heat that’s engulfing them. The sweat is causing Steve to lose his grip; he keeps trying to re-adjust his hands, each time creating a strange sensation Tony feels all the way down into his toes.

It’s rough. The rock behind him is like sandpaper on his skin and the position they’re in is making it hard to maintain a decent rhythm. Steve’s head is resting against Tony’s shoulder and Tony hears him panting for air over the slaps of skin against skin. He’s getting weak too—Tony can feel his muscles trembling around his thighs. Tony tries another hip roll but it knocks Steve off balance and he almost falls back. Luckily, he tumbles forward instead and uses an arm to brace himself.

Steve’s barely standing up straight but he’s still trying to buck up into Tony as much as he can while holding him one-handed. The strains evident on his features, but Tony recognizes that look of determination. Tony grabs the back of Steve’s head and tilts it so Steve has to look him in the eyes. “It’s okay,” he says, but without being entirely sure what he’s trying to console Steve about. “We’re okay.”

That must have been the right thing to say, because Steve slowly kneels down, somehow still managing to never remove his cock. On the ground Steve’s still on his knees with Tony on top straddling him. Tony makes another exploratory hip movement and _oh, this is so much better_ , he thinks.

“Tony, Tony,” Steve’s chanting and he’s not doing much more than staying still and watching as Tony moves. Steve’s moans change, too. They’re fast, more urgent, and Tony knows Steve’s close because he wraps one of those huge hands around Tony’s cock and starts moving it in time with Tony’s thrusts.

“I love you,” someone says, and it could have been either one of them, it could have been both, Tony’s just not sure. For all he knows he isn’t breathing anymore, his head feels airy, almost insignificant, and all the sounds around him are echoing off the cavern so many times that they’re just white noise in the background. Steve’s biting his lower lip and he looks blissed out; his eyelids close and twitch and his breath catches every time Tony drops himself around Steve’s knees.

Tony feels himself getting closer and closer; the tingling sensation is building in every cell of his body and spreading over his skin. There used to be things that separated them—moments and secrets and skin—but all that is gone now and he knows it’s him now saying “I love you” over and over and over, but it’s Steve that’s holding him close, it’s Steve who’s moaning his name, it’s Steve that catches his mouth in a sloppy kiss and bucks up once before he comes and shouts something unintelligible as his muscles turn to gelatin and he falls onto Tony’s body. It takes Tony just seconds for his orgasm to ignite throughout his body and he comes all over Steve’s still hand and his heaving chest.

As lightly as he can, Tony pushes Steve off him, but he misjudges how weak he actually is, and Steve’s limp body hits the ground with a thud. Steve groans, but all he does is open his eyes and see Tony still sitting on top of him. “Come here,” Steve says, his mouth so parched Tony can barely hear him, and he taps his hand next to him.

Tony lifts himself off Steve and feels the way Steve’s come drops out of him and onto Steve’s body. He thinks that he should clean up, and then remembers they could only have so many minutes left. That was the end.

 _La petite mort_ , Tony thinks. The little death.

It makes Tony laugh against where he’s draped across Steve and Steve gives him a look that says he understands.

Steve passes out and Tony wills himself to stay awake long enough in case the bomb fails, and when it doesn’t, when the cavern lights up and he knows the end is on its way, he smiles.

What a way to go.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first thing Tony is aware of is that there is a bright light above him that’s filtering through his eyelids and aggravating the thumping pain in his head. He tries to lift his arm to shield his face, but sharp agony shoots up his bones and he drops the whole arm back to the soft surface he’s sleeping on. There is someone talking beside him, but he can’t think with the pain in his skull. He’s light-headed, weak, and his thoughts are moving at speeds he associates with bulky computers and dial-up connections.

“Tony,” someone says and then he feels a hand in his; it hurts, but he holds on anyway. “Tony, are you awake?”

That voice.

He knows that voice.

“Pepper?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” he asks, like a child who has just learned the word.

_Why are you here? Why am I here?_

“We got you out just in time.” That’s someone else he knows, someone else’s voice he was sure he’d never hear again. “With nanoseconds to spare.”

Tony tries to open his eyes against the light, because he needs proof that he’s talking to who he thinks he’ talking to. He’s not confused to find out he’s in a hospital room.

It’s the people around him that surprise him.

At his side sits Pepper, leaning over the bed and intently watching him. Next to her stands Thor; he’s big and massive and fills much of the small room. At the foot of Tony’s bed is Rhodey and his lips are tight in what Tony knows is his angry face. Carol’s standing on the other side with a cocky smile and her hands on her hips, like she’s just won some great victory.

“How did you do it?”

Carol nods at Thor. “You think we can’t fly faster than a bomb?” she says and Thor smiles. Pepper just grips his hand harder. Rhodey’s look remains.

Tony doesn’t intend to argue with them. Instead, he looks around and tries to find another familiar face. He wants to assuage the fear that’s beginning to consume him more with every bit of consciousness he regains. “Where’s Steve?”

Carol explains, “He woke up this morning. We tried to keep him in bed, but someone picked up a lead on Namor’s group and you know him…”

“He had to work on task at hand,” Thor finishes for her, but he doesn’t need to. Steve has things to do, better things than sitting at Tony’s bedside.

“But he’s okay?” Tony needs confirmation of that, at least.

“When we found the two of you…” Carol trails off to wink at him and exchange looks with Thor, now wearing a positively gleeful smile.

“You both had severe heat exhaustion,” Rhodey says, ignoring whatever Carol’s so happy about.

“What the hell were you doing without the suit?” Pepper asks, and Tony’s sure Carol and Thor haven’t told her that they found the two of them naked. “It’s amazing neither of you are dead.”

He chuckles because it’s probably more amazing that they haven’t been entirely atomized. If Tony had to catalog and rate all of his risky and life-threatening decisions from the past week, removing the suit to be with Steve is certainly one of the best. “I’m here, aren’t I?” He aims to look nonplussed, but the pain makes him wince and he’s sure everyone in the room isn’t buying it. His eyelids grow heavy and are threatening to close without his approval, but Tony wants to stay awake because he’s useful to no one asleep.

“It’s okay,” Pepper still soothes, know exactly what he’s concerned about. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”

He does, and hours later judging by the darkness in the room, and Pepper’s almost right. She’s still there and curled up in a chair nearby, but the rest have gone to do what heroes do when the world is ending. There is someone he wasn’t expecting, however, standing near the door and watching him closely.

This Reed, _his_ Reed, is grayer in the temples than the man who captured him. Tony feels a wash of relief all over him as the original adrenalin boost from realizing he isn’t alone dissipates. “How are you?” Reed asks, half-concerned and half-fascinated.

The pain is better and Tony chalks it up to Extremis. “I’m fine.” It’s still a lie, but it’s not necessarily one he’s ashamed of. Reed knows right away what Tony really means, anyway.

He walks closer, settles in one of the chairs opposite Pepper, and smiles. “You’ve done a number on yourself. I’ve never seen anything like this new version of Extremis. I’m guessing, in your timeline, it won’t be won’t be finished for a couple of months.”

“Finished, perfected, and available for mass consumption. For a price.”

Reed’s observing him, looking for clues to answer whatever questions he’s dug up. “You’re a different person, it seems.”

Tony remembers the counterparts of the Avengers he met before. It’s how Steve’s eyes have changed—stronger, _sadder_ —that sticks out the most in his mind. “We’re _all_ different people, now.”

That does something to Reed, unlocks whatever he’s been storing ever since they gathered in Necropolis for the first time and he made it clear he believed everything dies. Tony sees it in the way he hangs his head and runs a hand through his hair before looking up and nodding. He agrees, and he’s all the more steadfast for it.

“Anything important I need to know about the future?” Reed asks, moving on to the next thing.

“Only that your daughter might be smarter than the two of us combined.”

Reed stands up and smiles. “Oh, that I was aware of.”

And that’s how he leaves Tony—truly hopeful for the future in a way he hasn’t been in months.

It gives him the energy to step out of bed. Extremis has had time to fix up his body; he’s still sore, but he can move at least. Pepper hasn’t woken up yet and she’s so clearly tired enough to remain unbothered by Reed’s entrance that Tony doesn’t want to disturb her. He finds a pen and a pad of paper in the drawer by the hospital bed and writes her a little note he hopes will be enough to soothe her worry before stepping out of the room.

He knows this hallway—they’re somewhere in the tower—and he knows where he wants to be. The workshop smells like late nights and take-out and whatever antiseptic cleaner is used to keep the place sanitary. There’s so much possibility in this room, so much he has accomplished, so much he can still do, but Tony isn’t here for that right now. Now, he needs to sooth something that’s been creeping into his mind since he woke up. The symbiote armor has gone the way of that last earth, but any armor will do for Tony right now. He finds one, red and gold, ready to go, and right in the last place he saw it, and there’s something about the way the amour snaps and click as he manually puts it on that feels right.

It takes only a half-hour to fly to San Francisco. Alcatraz is still just an old tourist attraction and Tony almost misses the way the way the lights from his old home reflect off the Bay. Tony touches down on the walkway of the Golden Gate Bridge so that he can see the island from the same perspective everyone else does.

He’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit he misses it. It was freedom—freedom from his own brain, freedom from having to always play by other people’s rules, freedom to do what was necessary. He aches to make a drink with painstaking attention to detail and then gulp it down like nothing matters.

Yet, he doesn’t want to go back to being that man.

All of those realizations war with each other while he listens to the cars pass behind him. He wonders what the drivers think about Iron Man just standing on the bridge with his arms on the rails and his mind lost in thought. He’s not sure for how long it goes on; people pass behind him, but something about him must stop them for asking for autographs.

Eventually his luck runs out and someone leans against the rail next to him. He looks up and expects to see a phone in his face, but instead it’s Steve, looking worn and tired and happy. His cowl is down and he’s smiling in the kind of way that reaches his eyes.

“How did you find me?” Tony asks, not letting Steve’s happiness defer him from making the decisions he needs to make.

“‘Iron Man Thoughts’ is trending on twitter.” Steve pulls out his phone to show a photo, clearly taken by a passing car, of him looking out on the water. “Congrats. You’re a meme.” Tony raises an eyebrow at ‘meme’, but Steve adds, “Bobby sent it to me,” and puts the phone away. “Any chance you can tell me about some of those thoughts?”

Tony looks out on the dark water again and points to Alcatraz. “I lived there. Held parties every night, spent most of the time in my swimsuit.” He looks at Steve and sees his face lit up by the headlights passing by. “You hated it.”

Steve laughs, but it’s bitter and laden with all the what-ifs they have. “Yeah, I’m sure I did.” He turns away again, his attention completely taken by something Tony cannot see and he doesn’t turn around to continue, “You know, I had to go follow that lead today.”

“I know.”

“I wasn’t running away from the conversation, I really had to—”

“I know.” Tony emphasizes. Steve doesn’t run. “I’d do it again.” It’s out of Tony’s mouth before he has a chance to convince himself it’s probably not worth the argument. He means taking Steve’s memories, but he doesn’t make it explicit. He doesn’t have to. It’s on both of their minds.

“I know.” It clearly hurts for Steve to say it, but he does, and he doesn’t follow it up with a punch, so Tony takes it for what it is. The wind blows past them, amplified in Steve’s silence as he searches for what it seems he needs to say. “It’s just… everything—the battles, the villains, the stakes—keep getting bigger. And it turns out, in the midst of that, I need you.”

It’s Tony’s turn to laugh. “Trust me, you don’t. You weren’t there, obviously, but in my timeline, you were fine without me. Better, even.”

Steve shakes his head and looks down onto the water below. “No, I really don’t think I was,” he says and places his hand on Tony’s, so they’re both resting on the bridge’s orange railing. He’s made a decision.

Tony looks down at their hands and tries to think of a way to convince Steve to change his mind. When he comes up with nothing he’s sure Steve would actually listen to, he turns to him so they are chest to chest, and says, “It’s not going to be easy.”

“It never is.” Steve steps forward and puts both hands on Tony’s waist.

Tony watches Steve’s blue eyes search his and he knows what he wants Steve to find in him. “Then maybe this time we make things a little _smaller_. If any of this is going to work, it has to start with you and me.” He’s learned that in every way this past week.

Those words take a minute to settle in for Steve, but when they do, Tony sees hope and plans behind Steve’s blue eyes. “I meant it when I said it, Tony. I love you.”

Those words send an electric thrill right to Tony’s gut. He feels the way Steve’s looking at him in his skin, and it makes him shiver. His arms come to rest on Steve’s shoulders. In the armor, Steve has to look up to see him, but that’s not why he feels so big in the moment. “That was you?” he half jokes. “My memory was a little fuzzy.”

Steve’s exaggerates rolling his eyes and shakes his head. “Mine, too, but it doesn’t change a thing. You?”

Tony scoffs and tightens his hold on Steve. They’re so close Tony just has to lean down centimeters so that they are forehead-to-forehead. He tries to think of something clever, something that he can’t take back. He wants the words to tell Steve just how much his very presence puts him off balance and yet supports him wholly, and he wants those words to still acknowledge what they both know by now—they’ll disagree, and they’ll always try to do what is right.

He tilts his head and pulls Steve closer. Steve does his part and closes that last inch so that when they kiss, it’s on both of them.

It’s not a passionate or tentative or anything in between. It’s just two people who have finally come to understand each other. That’s why Tony makes a promise—both to Steve and himself, and says, “I love you, too. And I’ll never take it back.” He lets the moment be for a few minutes, but Tony still has to ask. “Any chance you still have the Nomad costume?” he mumbles into the uniform.

“I’m guessing this question has something to do with your adventure in the multiverse,” Steve says as he pulls away just enough so that his arms his hands rest on the hips of Tony’s armor. “And that thing you mentioned about it not being your first time with me.”

Tony can’t help it, he looks at Steve with his eyes wide.

“What? I can put two and two together.” Steve shrugs. “And the answer is ‘no’. I think Nomad didn’t survive the last time my apartment blew up.”

“That’s a shame.” Tony wiggles his eyebrows and Steve blushes just enough that Tony knows he’s being understood. “How do you feel about flying?”

“I think that’s why I have you around,” Steve jokes and then it isn’t a joke any longer. “I can see you thinking… Are you going to make me a new costume?”

Steve smiles, probably because he knows Tony is going to do it anyway. "No... maybe... probably," Tony settles on saying and he can feel how Steve's nose crinkles up. Tony pulls him closer in a tight hug and lays his head in the crook of Steve’s neck and shoulder. Steve smells like the uniform’s special fabric, sweat, and the wind off the bay.

He smells like the way it feels to be an Avenger.

**Author's Note:**

> You can comment and kudos the art on Ao3 at [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14747604).
> 
> Or, you can reblog and like the fic and art on tumblr [here](http://colonelrogers.tumblr.com/post/174221396511/here-is-my-cap-iron-man-reverse-big-bang-2018).


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